Proud to be TUBE FREE!!!

We have some very exciting news to report about our dear Louisa Joy... she has been without her NG tube for almost 2 full days and hasn't starved yet!  It all started yesterday morning when she yanked it out in the middle of a very bad morning for me (dead Suburban in the Target parking lot, rescued by Nick's wonderful medical assistant Jenny who came and picked me up at Belle Tire so I could pick up Nick's car and finish grocery shopping, then had to leave an overflowing cart in the produce cooler at Meijer because the lines were so long I was going to be late to pick up Kelvin from preschool, went back to Meijer with Kelvin to purchase groceries, and then in the parking lot I started moving too fast and jerkily which is a problem I have when stressed and I ended up slamming my forehead into the corner of the car door while getting all the milk from the bottom of the cart, gushing blood everywhere.  So I drove back to Nick's office with my teeth chattering, thinking 'this is just great, I'm in shock and bleeding out', walked in crying with a bloody napkin on my head and poor Jenny had to calm me down and also gave me her lunch while Nick put Steri-Strips on my face).  Oh wait, was I talking about Louisa?  So anyway, after all that, I told Nick I was NOT going to go through the trauma of shoving a new tube down her nose (I hate doing it so much and I'm so sick of that thing and it's so sad now that she's older and fights it with so much tenacity!!) and she was just going to have to make it until he got home to do it.  She's been consistently drinking around half of her bottle before I have to tube the rest, so I knew she wouldn't starve to death.  So for the rest of the day, I just gave her 3 or 4 little eating sessions per bottle and she pretty much got it all down!  Now granted, I coaxed and bribed and it took quite a bit longer than the average normal baby, but she basically ingested most of the calories she was supposed to get for the day!!  She's been waking up more at night since we stopped the nighttime continuous feeds (shocker), but last night she actually slept amazingly without the stupid tube tugging and bugging her!  The only time she woke up was when Nick did a dream scream because someone was apparently breaking into our house and he was trying to beat them with the baseball bat.  I deliriously slugged him to try and quiet him down, but the very unnatural sound of a dream scream understandably upset her a bit.  So all that to say, Louisa has been without her tube for a couple days and we have fed her and given all her meds by mouth!  It is pretty time consuming right now to get everything down, but so worth it!  If you are still praying for Louisa (so thankful for so many dear, faithful prayers out there), please pray that she continues to take the bottle and that we can be done with that thing forever.  This is a HUGE hurdle to get over!!  Praise the Lord for my crappy morning yesterday, and GO LOUISA!!!!!   

Look at me, the only synthetic material attached to me now is somewhere inside my body near my heart or maybe in it or on it, my mom is never exactly sure!

I didn't think she could get more kissable, but she might actually be now with that adorable naked face.

8 months old already... I was sitting on my bedroom floor sobbing as I was putting away her 3-6 months clothes and my sister Molly said, "Maybe you should consider doing this type of thing while Nick is home???"

But seriously, could she get any cuter?

My rice came in the shape of Louisa's heart at Thai Princess the other night!! (Just kidding, I actually ate the left ventricle)

Guess who Nick saw when he opened up this Mott Congenital Heart Center Annual Report he got in the mail at his office... Surprisingly, they caught me with a bizarre facial expression, but at least I'm clutching a blanket in my lap which is a weird hospital habit of mine, picked up while Louisa was on ECMO.

That darn tube!  Nick actually sutured one of the ports closed the other night because we were so sick of it getting snagged on things (or the silly baby playing with it and opening it) and stuff leaking everywhere... let's be DONE with it, Lou!!!