Happy Thanksgiving from All SIX Of Us!

Normally we spend Thanksgiving in our hometown, Wheeling. But with Phoebe in the hospital, we decided to stay home for the holiday. We visited Phoebe in the NICU in the morning and took our first family picture with all six of us. It was wild for sure...but our nurse was patient and we got a couple good shots. And it was exciting to be able to disconnect Phoebe from the monitors for a few minutes for the picture. After that we headed home and had a delicious turkey dinner. Then I went back to the hospital for a little while and Chris and the boys had a movie night.

Meanwhile, our favorite NICU nurse and friend, Mary Ann, worked that afternoon and surprised Phoebe with a 1st Thanksgiving outfit!! I just cannot say enough about what a blessing she has been for us.

Yes, it's a tad big, but it was perfect!

So our first Thanksgiving at home wasn't exactly traditional, but it was filled with blessings.

Phoebe is still doing well. She's been having one or two bradys each day lately, and we're praying she outgrows those soon. She didn't have any today. She's still taking every other feeding by bottle and doing pretty well with that and her bed temp is down just about as low as it will go. The current plan is to leave her in her incubator until she's gotten a little better with her bottles so she doesn't burn too many calories at once. It's hard work for a little preemie to eat by bottle and maintain her own body temp. She's up to 4 lbs 10 oz., which is excellent, and we don't want to stress her so much that she stops gaining or even loses weight.

Last week, when she had a CBC, her hemoglobin and hematocrit had gone down again. It's been low consistently, and the numbers were pretty low last week. But her reticulocytes were high, which apparently means she is making new blood and they are hopeful that her other levels will rebound. They will do a CBC again on Wednesday.

So our request: Please pray that Phoebe's blood count comes up. Please also pray that she continues to mature and that she "gets" bottle feeding and is able to maintain her body temp and that she continues to gain weight. And please pray that she stops having bradys (heart rate drops).


Apparently, preemies put their hands up like this when they are overstimulated and can't settle because of what's happening. In this case, "what's happening" was her mom taking the blanket off the top of her bed and taking her picture because she was wearing a sleeper for the first time!

Hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving and are enjoying the weekend! We are spending our Saturday having a birthday party with family for our son, David. He turns 3 on December 7.