Sophia, hurry home!!!

Here's a little video of Sophia blinking her eyes for us. She's sedated on fentynol, so she may look a little drowsy...

Here is Haleigh leaving the hospital (Howard County). She had to stay home the next day, but on the 16th she was able to accompany me to visit Sophia at Johns Hopkins.


Being treated with the ole' Billy Light (for Jaundice). The docs stopped the treatment after only 24 hours, however they say it's likely to have to treat it again later.

Kissing her precious little knee.

Melissa (Haleigh's mom who now goes by Grammy) arrived on the 16th and has taken on the grandmother role like a champ. :) What a big help around the house!!

Three generations...

Haleigh got to change her diaper earlier today! I checked Sophia's temperature.

Okay, now that the pics are over, all the interested parties can continue learning the details by reading the following. First, I'd like to say that my heart goes out to Ashlie and Brad Cook who spent 4 months visiting the NICU at Baylor Medical because their (now 1.5 year old) Bradie was born premature at 26 weeks. I can't imagine going through this for that long, so for that, Ashlie and Brad have become my heroes. God bless you guys.

It seems that God and the doctors and the ventilator have all made the pneumoparachardiom (air around the heart) go away. This was the reason Sophia was tranferred by ambulance to Johns Hopkins (JH) in the beginning, so what a relief to have that behind us. The pneumonia is still being treated by antibiotics and we believe it will take another 7 days for effectiveness. As for the darn ventilator, we're hoping that her blood gases improve so that we can switch from the jet ventilator to the conventional ventilator, and then to no ventilator. Sophia's being stubborn for now though, and her oxygen assistance level is ranging between 40 and 60 per cent lately. The persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN) is no longer a concern to the doctors, so I guess that means her lungs have developed properly. (Haleigh, remind me to ask Dr. Hughes how the PPHN can go away but the PIP/PEEP not decrease from the current settings)

We recorded some classical music (some of which was given to us by Meme and Papaw for the baby shower) onto a tape recorder and placed it in Sophia's bed. On the other side of the tape, we recorded ourselves reading kids books. I hope this keeps her company through the night!

Thank you all for your prayers. We appreciate it more than you know.