HE is RISEN

Elle Update from Sunday, April 12, 2009 - Happy Easter!! April 12 was supposed to be Elle's actual due date. I think she knew that Easter Sunday was supposed to be the day she was to come into the world, because Elle had a marvelous day ( and so did we)! Our day began with a wonderful sermon at church. I have always loved Easter - the message from church - the true meaning of the day, the excitement of the egg hunt, the glorious amounts of candy, the beautiful new dresses on the ladies and jackets and ties on the gentlemen. It has always seemed that moms tend to tie the bows on the back of their daughter's dresses a little neater and a lot bigger on Easter Sunday! When we got home from church, Lee and I rushed around grabbing our stuff before going up to the hospital. I had to make some emergency corrections to Elle's dress. I had forgotten that Elle's dress had to fit around her PICC line. While I was packing up some stuff in case we needed to stay the night at the hospital, Lee took the stitches out of the strap on Elle's dress. I had to sew a button on the strap in the car so we could maneuver it around her PICC. It turned out great - and I was so pleased with my car ride sewing job. When we got to the hospital, all of the nurses went crazy over out little princess's dress. Lee and Karen got Elle all fixed up while I took care of mom duties. I came back to her bedside to see her perfectly dressed! Way to go Lee and Karen! Her dress was a little big, so Karen had to tape it together in the back. I think Elle really liked being the center of attention - with everyone oohing and ahhing over her. She stayed awake for a majority of the afternoon. Of course, being that it was Easter - Elle's bow had to be a little bigger than usual - special occasions warrant bigger bows. It has a bunny in the middle of it! Karen told us that Elle's surgery had been moved from second case on Monday afternoon to first case. This means that her surgery will take place at 7:30am on Monday morning. Hearing that she had been moved up was such a welcomed relief - finally our little baby will have her heart fixed. We spent the rest of the day with our wonderful family members and our little princess. She had a great day despite throwing up twice. She is fine - the cardiologist came to do an echo cardiogram while she was eating and moved Elle's head to get a clear image on her heart. She moved her head so that it was tilted back - not great positioning for a baby who is eating. We were all watching the monitor and all of a sudden there was a rush of color on the screen. We all looked at Elle to see what was going on - just in time to see almost 58 cc of milk come back up - along with her feeding tube! Karen was so mad at the cardiologist - and so was I! I believe Karen told her to hurry up and finish her job so she could do hers! After the cardiologist left, Karen got Elle situated again, re-inserted her feeding tube (after she threw it up again) and started feeding Elle again. In all the chaos, not one drop of milk got on her precious little dress! Since Elle's surgery was moved up, Lee and I decided to stay here. Finally, at 11:30pm, Selly kicked us out of the NICU. She and Elizabeth told us that they would take care of our baby because we needed to sleep. Surgery day is a huge day - more so for the parents! We left Elle sucking on her pacifier with heavy eye lids - ready to fall asleep. Our baby is in the Lords hands - he will protect her and us during this entire procedure. He already has!!