A Very Happy Birthday!!

Thursday, April 23, 2009 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLE!! Today Elle is one month old! My mom, dad and I walked into the NICU and the first thing we did was sing Happy Birthday to our little princess Elle. She had a great morning and at around 9:00am - the neo team and the cardiac team were making rounds. They ran through Elle's vitals and then our wonderful nurse practitioner, Princy, made a request. She said that since Elle had been so stable for so long - she was the perfect candidate for a step down room on the 15th floor. Dr. Nelson, the attending cardiologist, asked me if I would be able to take care of Elle's suctioning. I told him that Karen had taught me the best way to suction out Elle's nose and I felt comfortable doing the suctioning - so he gave his blessings for us to move to 15. On the 15th floor, there are 5 "step down" rooms and the rest are regular rooms. The 15th floor are large rooms with a bathroom, pullout couch, tv... where the family has to stay with the patient 24/7. The only difference between the step down rooms and the regular rooms is that the step downs rooms are 1 patient for every 3 nurses and the regular rooms are 1 patient to every 5 or 6 babies. I didn't think it would happen today. Since there is such a demand of the rooms on the 15th floor - I was pretty sure the move would happen this weekend sometime. I was wrong! I was talking with one of the neo doctors and she said - " you know you have a room - right?" I think my mouth must have hit the floor because I was shocked. After 31 days in the NICU - we are moving to a private room. It was a mixture of excitement and fear about the move. Excitement about being in a private room and fear because our wonderful nurses and doctors that we have grown to know, love and trust won't be right next to us. It was so "freeing" being in the NICU and knowing that if an alarm went off - Elle's nurse was no more than 10 steps away and could take care of it. In 15, the nurses are outside the rooms and the parents are the primary care givers. The move didn't take anytime at all. We found out that we had a room around 1:00pm and we were in our room by about 4:00pm. We said goodbye to all of our nurses and doctors and headed to our new home. Elle is definitely going to be one of those kids that likes car rides because she loved the ride in her crib. What a wonderful birthday present! When we got into the room, the first thing we noticed was the absolutely quiet. It was so nice to not have all the monitors going off every 2 seconds. We spent a wonderful evening with the family and even dressed Elle up in her little ballerina tutu for her birthday picture. Lee and I are so blessed with our little angel!

Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."