1st Thanksgiving (3 weeks old)

Well we sure do have a lot to be thankful for this year!!! Three little blessings in the NICU and a world of Joy. This past week has been good! The steroids have helped the girls quite a bit. Siena our little peanut keeps trucking along and in the past week has gotten off the "Jet", transitioned to the Si-Pap machine and yesterday moved on to the C-Pap machine. She’s a trouper! So still help breathing but dong extremely well! The nurses have comment on how feisty she is... she’s a little fighter :).

Gemma is doing great also! She got off the “Jet” as well and is now on the Si-Pap machine. The nurses that care for her comment on how she’s all girl, the way she poses herself as if she’s on camera, lol. She also has a mind of her own and as the doc mentioned... “she practically tried to pull the intubation tube out and hand it to me”. So i’m sure she was happy this week when she went down to the Si-Pap machine and got to have the tube removed! She’s up to 1lb 11oz. Almost caught up with her sister Jaden who’s 1lb 14oz. Jaden had surgery this past week. The PDA (Hole in her heart) had opened back up after 2 rounds of medicine and had opened up larger than it was before. This is a common occurrence for premie’s, and a fairly routine surgery for the doc’s to perform, none the less it was scary for mom and dad. No one wants to have their baby cut into! They went in with a small incision on her left side, deflated her lung (went in between the ribs so no breaking or damaging to the bones) clamped the hole and re-inflated the lung. The ended up using 2 clamps because the hole was larger than they had anticipated. I’m so glad they went ahead and did the surgery because the hole was causing problems for her and keeping her from making strides to get off of the ventilators. They closed the small hole up with the skin glue so it leaves a very tiny scar, a faint little line that’s not very noticeable.

Mommy has been doing well except for catching a cold of some sort. It felt like it was developing into strep or something like it so i got some antibiotics and am on day 2. The nurses said i could come back to the NICU after the third day so i’ll get to see the girls again on Saturday. It STINKS not being able to see them but at the same time, the last thing i want to do is give something to the girls. They have a tough enough fight without me bringing an outside virus to them. They need to stay healthy so I can hold them in my arms! ..... Soon!

Not only are we thankful for Gemma, Siena & Jaden this thanksgiving... We are also so very thankful for all of our friends and family that have been there for us day in and day out. Praying for us and the girls and showering us with encouragement.

Thank you soooo much!

Lisa...for The Very Blessed Isola Family.