Back Home

Well, two of the three Sandersons made the move back home this week. Kyle and I decided it was time for us to move out of the Ronald McDonald House and back into our little apartment in Newhall. I was getting quite homesick and ready to sleep in my own bed, shower in my own shower, and enjoy tiny bit of normalcy. It took us three days to get all the stuff we had accumulated in that little room back into our apartment and boy do we have our work cut out for us! We have bags and bags of thing to put away, a whole nursery to set up, and a whole lot of cleaning to do. But it is so wonderful to be back home!

Little Suzie, however, seems to be in no rush to come home at all. She hasn't made too much progress with her breathing in the past week and still is on oxygen. Kyle and I are realizing that she will most likely have to come home on oxygen, which is fine by us as long as we get to take her home! The great thing is that she is now on a low enough flow of oxygen for her to come home right now if she was ready. So really the one thing we are waiting on is for her to learn how to drink all her feeds from a bottle. She eats 47ml eight times a day. Right now she is taking about 20ml from a bottle once a day. So you can see we have a long way to go in that area. But it's just another opportunity for us to be patient and trust the Lord. We certainly do not want to take her home until she is completely ready, so we will just wait until that time comes.

It has been a bit of a challenge for me to not compare her with the other babies. Ever since we have moved into this most recent nursery (where babies are typically discharged from), all the babies around us come and go but Suzie just seems to stay put. They all seem to have no trouble taking all their bottles and she is the only one in the room still on oxygen. I confess that I am so tempted to be envious and wish that Suzie was doing as well as the other babies. But how selfish of me to not simply be happy for these other babies and grateful for how well Suzie really is doing! I have so much to be thankful for and hope that the Lord grows me in gratitude, trust, and truly loving others more than I love myself.

Here are some more of our favorite pictures.

I have so much fun dressing out little baby girl in very girly outfits:)

Since it looks like we'll be here for several more weeks, we have taken the liberty to make her crib as homey as possible. She has several blankets and toys from home as well as an aquarium and a mobile! She really enjoys watching the animals and listening to the music.

We also brought in an infant seat so that we can change her position some times. She looks like such a big girl in her seat!

She really hates her bath until we get her all covered up in a towel and wash her hair. She loves to have her little head massaged.

Well, that's about it for us here. Please pray that Suzie would continue to progress in her breathing and be able to learn how to eat all her feeds from a bottle. We are continually grateful for all the prayers and support of so many. Thank you for sharing in this journey with us. We praise our great God for you all!