Day 7- December 12th

Two steps forward..and one step back......

We will not be leaving today as planned. She does not have an appetite that they are comfortable letting her go home with. We basically have to force feed her after 1/2 an ounce. They finally had to put a tube down her nose and into her stomach last night to supplement what she is lacking because of her weight loss. We will be "Rooming-In" tonight, which is where we stay in a room with her all night and feed her ourselves to see how much we can get her to take on her own.

The thing that worries me is not that we can't feed her enough (if Blake and I try hard enough, we can get her to take what she needs), but we don't want to push her (force feed her) just so we can get out of here. We want her to be healthy when we take her home. If not, there's a possibility that she'll be in a hospital in Houston within a few days if her appetite doesn't pick up.

They changed her feeding to on demand (instead of every 3 hours) which will help her eat the desired goal amount, but it means we are up for 24 hours feeding her. This sounds okay for toniught, but I can't stay up 24/7 when we get home to feed her every 30 minutes (when I have to take care of 3 children during the day). Blake has to go back to work the minute we get home, so it's just me.

This has been a very frustrating day for us so far. There's a fine balance between wanting to come home to Houston, and wanting to leave here with a healthy baby so that we do not have more problems when we get home.

My specific prayer request for today is that she has a huge appetite and this lazy-eating behavior goes away entirely. Pray for patience for us that we continue to keep her health paramount over all other issues related to living at the hospital in Lubbock. Pray for comfort for our other 3 girls, that they may understand why we still haven't come home yet with their baby sister (and their Mommy & Daddy).

We know everything will work out in due time. We're just ready to be home with our entire family.

Thanks again for your prayers,
Casey