Alegria Updates (Praises and Prayer Requests)

We have sucessfully transfered Alegria to Fort Wayne Lutheran. Again God has gone ahead of us in preparing the path for us to take. The staff here has been just as wonderful as what we experienced in Lagrange.

Praises...
Alegria is already taking her entire feeding from the bottle. We have not had to gavage tube feed since we arrived in Fort Wayne.

Alegria's sugar levels dropped significantly due to a much longer gap in feeding as a result of the transfer. Thankfully we were able to get those numbers back into the normal range by just bottle feeding (and we did not need to start IVs to get her sugar back up)

Her bilirubin continues to be just high enough to warrant the bililights, but hopefully tomorrow we be able to take her off of those.

Here at Fort Wayne, they are allowing me to be extremely hands on in her care which was one of my concerns before transferring. We are able to feed her, hold her, bath her, and do basically any of her normal care ourselves. The nurses only come as necessary. We are in a private room with her, and do have wifi access in that room (no cell phones though), so the best way to contact us is via email or facebook. You may also leave messages on Al's voicemail which we check when we leave the NICU.

Prayer Requests...
We have learned so much already, but I expect the learning curve to be even higher today as we begin to meet with all of the specialists on Alegria's team here in Fort Wayne. Starting around 8 am, we will begin meeting with her plastic surgeon, speech pathologist, lactation consult, and neonatologist. We expect to run the routine echo cardiogram today, and then begin the process fro fitting the obturator (prothetic palatte) tomorrow. If all goes well, we may be home Saturday. Please pray we are able to process all the information that we will receive today.

We also have numerous financial decisions to be made as we are self-pay. We are a part of a Christian ministry though which will cover the 1st $100,000. Please pray God will give us wisdom and direction along with His provision.

Two very minor prayer requests are for Al and I. We both have scratchy throats which the nurse suggested may be more due to lack of rest than anything else. Please pray we stay healthy. Also I am having a difficult time clearing all the fluid they pumped into my IVs during labor, so I have significant swelling in my legs and calves. It is not really a problem medically and is to be expected, but it is very uncomfortable and it is difficult for me to keep my legs elevated right now.

Also please continue to pray for all the other children at home right now with my mother and sister. They are all doing very well, but it is certainly more difficult being away from home and mom and dad.

Thank you all again for your prayers! I expect to update again this evening.

Jill and Al