Thursday, July 24

Hi Friends,

Last night we received a wonderful piece of news from the doctor. If you remember, a few days ago they had told told us that our little girl had a 40% chance of surviving. As of last night, the doctors are giving her a 90% chance! She is doing very well on the new ventilator and her lungs are so much stronger. The greatest risk to her life at this present time is the possibility of different kinds of infection. What a joy to our hearts to hear that our little Suzie is progressing so well and that the doctors are anticipating she will fight through this time. Of course, no matter what percentage of survival the doctors tell us, we trust in our Lord who has planned every moment of her life from before time. We do praise God for the progress she is making and do not take for granted how much we need to pray and depend on Him still.

Suzie has gained a tiny bit of weight at this point, but any weight gain is milestone for her! She continues to have her little eyes covered by a mask so that they can shine these very bright lights on her to help her with her jaundice. She is currently being fed intravenously, but they will soon try to give her very small amounts of breast milk to see how she does. Her intestines do not know what they should be doing, so the doctor has told us it could take a while for her body to start digesting the food. They hope to move her off of this new ventilator in a few days. This will be a great day for us, for our hearts hurt every time we go to see her and have to see the tube that she is intubated with. Her new ventilator will only go in her nose and she will most likely be on that ventilator for several weeks. She is kept on a constant drip of pain medication that keeps her from feeling any sort of discomfort.

Kyle and I make our way in to see our little daughter several times throughout the day. We tell her constantly how much we love and miss her, how much we are praying for her, and how our Creator is with her and loves her even more than we do! My new favorite thing to do is to "hold her hand," or rather, she holds my finger, for her hand is not any bigger than my thumb! I love to watch her kick out her little arms and legs and I think I could just sit by her side and look at her all day long.

Today they will look at her heart again to see if the PDA is fully closed. Tomorrow they will take another look at her brain to make sure the bleeding is not getting worse. We will send another update tomorrow! Thank you once again for your prayers and for bearing this burden with us. We never have known the love of the body of Christ like we do in this most trying time.

In Christ,
Kyle and Steph

Psalm 31:24, "Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the LORD."