17 Weeks Old

Abby is now 17 weeks old and has made a lot of progress in the past couple of days! Lots of fluid has come off and she is back to her normal size. Yay! They've started doing pressure trials in anticipation of extubating early this week, fingers crossed. This involves setting the ventilator to mimic being extubated (they can't just turn it off, or Abby would effectively be breathing through a straw) - that way they can see how ready she is to extubate with the security of having the ventilator already in place. So far she's done well enough to make them happy. Another yay!

Hopefully, now that she's had time to heal, she won't face the same respiratory struggles she dealt with previously.  She's been slowly weaning off the sedatives, and we've gotten to see her eyes more and more without her being super agitated. She's been bound and determined to pull out all of her tubes and wires, so she has to wear soft restraints - which at first we were really sad about, but they actually seem to help her stay calmer. We are hopeful that this next extubation attempt will be successful and that we can start looking at moving to the cardiac step-down unit soon!

Thank you for all of your kind words and thoughts in regards to Jameson's post earlier this week. Though these were sentiments we've discussed at length, we're never really sure how other people will react to the feelings we've had to contend with throughout this process. It's really encouraging to hear such positive responses. It helps us lift our heads up a little higher and allows us to be honest in a situation that involves a lot of doubt and insecurity. The love that has been shown our family is truly astounding. Thank you, a million times over.

Abby will be turning 4 months old this week and I pray that I'll be able to update with lots of good news!

Aaaaand, for your viewing pleasure - this is what happens when your kid has heart problems and you get a cold: