Khloe Day 7 & 8

So I need to appologize to everyone for not posting the last two nights when I said I would. It gets hard to post because I have to go to the hospital to get internet and when I'm there I want to be with my little girl. If I don't post everyday like I'd like to, hold tight and I'll do multiple day posts like this one and the last one. First I need tell you all about something I left out from Day 6 on the last post. Every day they do multiple labs, where they draw Khloe's blood. There isn't much blood in her little body so they told us that she most likely will have to have multiple blood transfusions throughout her stay and on June 9 (day 6) she had her first one. It takes about 3 hours to do and unfortunately Shelbie and I weren't able to be there for it because we had to go to Ephraim. We were told the transfusion went really well and Khloe didn't mind it at all. Ok now for day 7 and 8. On the last post I told everyone about Khloe's PDA and I said she was having a good resposnse to the injections and Friday we were told that the injections had worked and her PDA was either closed or barely open. That was great news and that means she won't have to have surgery to fix it. She is still eating, but they are only giving her small amounts of milk, about 3 mL. The reason for the small amounts is that for a week she has been getting her nutrients through I.V. and her intestines haven't had to do any work so they are trying to get them working by feeding her small amounts of milk every 6 hours. So far it's a slow process and her intestines aren't working very quickly so she has small amounts of bile they have to suction out of her stomach. Saturday she reached another milstone. She is officially off the "Minimal Stimulation" so we will now be able to have more interaction with her. For the past week Khloe has had two lines in her umbilical cord. One is an arterial line in the artery and the other is in the umbilcal vein. The purpose of these lines are to draw blood for labs so they don't have to poke her. Yesterday when we arrived to see her, to our great surprise we found that she had her arterial line taken out. She is still breathing on her own very well. She has mostly been breathing 21% oxygen, which is room air and what we all breathe, and her oxygen levels in her blood are still high so that means she is breathing very well. She is still having AB's but they are getting less and less frequent. Yesterday evening we came to see her and once again Shelbie got to take her temperature and change her diaper and she received an even better surprise. Shelbie was able to help change Khloe's bedding and was able to hold her and hear her cry for the first time! Sadly I wasn't in there when she did this, but now that Khloe's min. stimulation is done I will be able to watch Shelbie do it again and even do it myself. They also took out the line in her umbilical vein last night and they put a "picc line" in which is an form of I.V. that threads all the way up her arm and just outside her heart. The reason for this is that a picc line can stay in longer than a normal I.V. That should get you all up to speed. Thanks for all your support and love through this difficult time.

                                          Here is a picture of Khloe hugging her blankie!