Baby Update....rough day...but looking up

Well today started out a little rough. After a chest x-ray this morning the doctors thought little Ella (we named her Mariella Ann) had some type of infection in her lungs like pnemonia. Since she is already on IV Anitbiotics there was nothing to change. She continued to have trouble breathing though and was working so hard to do it, that they decided to put her on a ventilator. After putting her on the ventilator she was still not relaxing and her blood pressure had dropped enough that they were worried about her body's ability to absorb all the extra oxygen she was being given and decided that a blood transfusion was neccessary. They had also done another chest x-ray and determined that while the first x-ray made it look like her lungs were fully developed and we were just dealing with infection, this second one showed that her lungs still needed some help expanding so they gave her another round of surfactant (which helps lubricate the lungs making it easier for them to expand). They were also still trying to play with the numbers on her ventilator to make her more comfortable (up to this point she was still trying too hard to breathe on her own), and so they could start lowering the amount of oxygen they were giving her (they had to start giving her 50% or higher for most of the day....and goal is to get her breathing what we breathe about 21%) I feel like I'm learning another language here trying to understand what all the different numbers, terms, and alarms mean! Finally at the end of the day here we are seeing some positives. They finally got the ventilator to work the right way for her and she started relaxing and getting more comfortable and able to just sleep which she so badly needed giving all the stress her little body had been put through. And probably about the time Lance went home for the night around 4pm things have been going up up up. They were able to start lowering her oxygen levels (she is currently at 27% which is just wonderful) and after the blood she was given her heart rate had gone up too. She is holding steady with all the new changes and they have even been able to adjust some of the numbers on her ventilator so that she is doing a little more work on her own. They plan tomorrow is to slowly try to wean her off the ventilator and possibly give her some food. We will see how things go and we'll keep you posted on changes. Thank you for all the prayers, concern, and help everyone has given us we really appreciate it.

During all the craziness of today one fun thing was that I was able to get a few pictures of her without anything on her little face and to actually kind of see what she looks like. She has quite a bit of hair (kind of like Maddi did) except it is blonde (like Mia's was). And speaking of the other girls they came to the hospital once today and while I was sad to see that they both seemed to be struggling to understand everything going on here (for instance Maddi didn't really want anything to do with Mommy) the cute thing was that while I was sitting in the waiting room with them while Lance went to see Ella, I could tell Maddi wasn't happy so I tried to get her to come sit on my lap with her blankie and cuddle (something she normally responds well to) and she did not want to do that, but a few seconds later I noticed Mia sitting on her little chair and saying "Come here Maddi I'll hold you" and then she scooted Maddi onto her lap (slightly awkward since they aren't THAT different in size) and Maddi grabbed her blankie and started sucking her little finger while sitting on Mia's lap. I thought, "well if I can't comfort her at least she has her sister". Kind of heartbreaking but cute :) Also tonight after Lance put them down for bed he went to check on them and Mia had taken all her pillows and blankets and books, put them all in Maddi's crib and they were reading books together. Must be their little coping mechanism to just stick together. :)

I'll post pictures later.