day 18.

Today was great! If you're stalking me on Facebook you saw that Ruthe's surgeon told us that she's doing remarkable well! He was impressed that she's already off the ventilator, he thought it would take a few days after surgery before she'd be alert enough to make the switch to the nasal cannula. He also changed her chest tube from a suction drainage to just regular (I think they called it water-locked) pour-into-a-container drainage. I love that he was impressed with how well she's doing. I mean, I knew she was awesome from the very beginning, but it's nice when the doctors confirm it!!

Since I spent the night here again last night, I was here at 2am when they took her x-ray, and then at 11ish when the doctor came by to tell us about it. There's still quite a bit of fluid in her lungs. It should eventually be pushed out by the pressure provided through her nasal cannula. Once all that fluid drains out and her blood-gas levels are holding strong they'll be able to take her off all respiratory support.

The doctors/nurses (I never really remember who answers which questions) told me that once her chest tube is out and healed, and they remove her arterial line (hopefully in the next couple days) we'll be able to start holding her again!! It will be a long time (6-8 weeks) before she'll be able to lay on her chest, so we can't snuggle her very close, but we can cradle her like the sweet little baby doll she is!

This afternoon was my cousin Paizley's birthday party. She's SIX!! John and I went out to her party for about an hour and a half. It was the perfect chance to show everyone the video we took last night of Ruthe crying. We realize its probably a little sad, and might be hard to watch, but her voice is the sweetest sound. We just have to share it :) Anyway, Paizleycakes had a "garden party" complete with ladybug cake pops, plant-your-own-sunflower party favors, and (my favorite) flower petal headbands!

After the party, our plan was to stop at home for a quick shower and some dinner, and then to head back to the hospital before 7. Well, we might have accidentally fallen asleep until 8:15. Oops! We got up, I took an even quicker shower than I'd planned on, and met up with Brian, Alisha, Turner, and Landon at the hospital to show off our baby.

Luckily, the nurse tonight let us break the only-two-people-at-a-time rule, so we didn't have to rotate our friends into the room. I think she might have regretted that decision a little later, because you can't really put all of us in a room together and expect us to be quiet little church mice. (We were never even very quiet at church growing up.). It was so fun having friends in here with us! We really love introducing Ruthe to people. She's kind of our favorite thing right now.

They started feeding her breast milk through a line that goes into her nose and down to her belly around 9pm today. She only gets 3cc's over an hour, but so far she's done really well with it, and hasn't had any trouble keeping it all down or getting too much air in her belly on accident. Hopefully they can start giving her more tomorrow, and more the next day, and more the next day... I better get pumping!!