April 2, 2011 - 29 Days Old

Today, Aiden is showing some signs of improvement. His lungs are still looking good. The x-rays of his lungs are still pretty cloudy with infiltrates, but there are no major collapsed areas as there were before. They have been turning down the support levels on the breathing machine and he seems to be tolerating the reduced help pretty well. His tummy looks a little better, too. There's still a lot of air in there, but his belly girth measurements have been slowly decreasing for the past two days. That's encouraging. They turned off the suction through the Anderson tube, the tube running down into his bowel trying to drain off the excess air. It is now only draining by gravity. When they have tried that before, his tummy immediately blew up again, but it seems to be working OK so far this time. I went out of town for work yesterday and visited Aiden tonight as I was on my way home. I got there just after the nurses bathed him. I was able to lift him up as they changed his linens and took his weight. He has been very swollen and puffy over the past few days from all of the fluids they have been giving him, but some of that swelling is coming down. I don't know if they gave him lasix or if he is just getting rid of it on his own, but his weight was 2092 grams on Thursday, 2085 yesterday, and 1992 (4.5 lbs.) tonight. I never thought I would be happy that my preemie was losing weight, but in Aiden's case, that's a good thing right now.

Today was the start of April General Conference. The morning session this morning was just what we needed. Every talk seemed to have been written just for us. Elder Kent Richards, Elder Quentin Cook, and President Henry Eyring gave talks that were particularly timely and meaningful to me. Elder Richards, a retired surgeon, spoke about pain and shared the story of a 13 year-old girl and an experience she had following a serious surgery. His words were very comforting to both Amaraa and I. As Elder Cook spoke about the women of the church and President Eyring spoke about service and caring for those in need, I couldn't help but think of all of the wonderful Relief Society sisters in our ward that have been so thoughtful and kind to us throughout the past several months. One of many examples of this happened on Friday as I was getting ready to go out of town. I checked the mail and found an envelope with Amaraa's name on it. Inside was a card from a sister in our ward. She shared a favorite scripture and wrote words of comfort and encouragement. Amaraa had been having a particularly difficult time emotionally and the card was just what she needed. This sister knew that Aiden had been struggling, but did not know that Amaraa was having such a hard time. She was simply prompted by the Spirit and she listened to that prompting. I can't begin to express how grateful I am to her and all of the other people who have been so supportive and thoughtful. We feel so blessed to have the friends and the family that we have.

February 20, 2011 - 28 Weeks, 5 days

This week has been fun. A lot of good friends have been to visit Amaraa -- some of which we hardly get to see anymore. We have been blessed with so many good friends. People seem to come out of the woodwork to give us their support during our times of need. We have amazing ward members and amazing friends. Thank you all.

Amaraa is doing well. They finally took out her IV this week and she and the baby have been doing so well that they didn't make her wear the baby monitor last night. She was finally able to get a good night's sleep. The baby's heart rate has been pretty consistent, but they said that he still sometimes has some irregularity. Tomorrow she goes in for another appointment with the perinatalogist at Maternal Fetal Medicine. They'll measure her fluid levels and also measure the baby. They don't like to measure the baby every week, so they only measure every couple of weeks. They say it gives them a better idea of actual growth that way. Two weeks ago, he weighed just over two pounds, so we are hoping for three this week.

The nurse weighed Amaraa today. She lost two pounds this week!  Yay!  Without the IV in, she isn't gaining so much water weight. She is definitely eating for two lately. They'll bring her meals in and she'll eat those, and then her Mongolian friends will bring Mongolian food and she'll eat that too, and then she'll ask me to stop at the store and get her a pint of Haagen Dazs! They let her order the food she wants at the hospital now and yesterday she ordered so much they had to bring it in on two trays! So, she feels pretty good about losing two pounds. I think it's hilarious.

I brought the kids in on Friday. Amaraa misses them so much, so it was good for her to see them. We spent quite a while at the hospital and the kids had fun spending time with their mom. They danced for Amaraa, and Jasmine cuddled up with her mom in the bed and had some mommy-daughter bonding time. They had a great time.