it's been a week...[ and three days]

since the "surprise" labor and delivery of my Bella Bryn Mays. "my bellz" was born three weeks premature and has been in the NICU since she was born. i've been staying here with her, first as a patient for forty-eight hours and now as a boarding mom. since i'm exclusively breastfeeding her, i need to be accessible every three hours. so i'm sleeping in a special room for breastfeeding/NICU moms at the hospital.

my bellz is doing exceptionally well for being premature. she has had no breathing issues whatsoever and within a few hours was breastfeeding. she was immediately put into an isolette to regulate/maintain her temperature for her since she was a mere five pounds zero ounces at birth. about two days after she was born, they put her under the phototherapy lights because she had elevated bilirubin levels and they were worried about her being jaundice, along with the other risks of high bili levels. at this point, her only stipulations for coming home were for her levels to go down, her weight to go up, and her body to maintain her temperature on its own.

i got a call thursday night that her bilirubin levels were still elevated and this was because her liver was having trouble processing it. it's a long complicated issue that you can read about HERE. and at this point, the question wasn't how many days until she goes home...it was how many weeks, and possibly months!

i can't say that it's been easy. it's been really difficult dealing with all of this, especially given that my whole family is split up.  but there has been hope. just in the last few days, her direct bilirubin levels have gone from a  4.6 to a 3.0 [as of yesterday] and her levels need to be at a 1.5 or less than 10% of the total. [for example: yesterday her total was 8.0 so ten percent of that would be .8....make sense?] some of the doctors are hopeful that her liver is just "slow to function"and is slowly correcting itself. that would make sense, right?! considering she was at least three weeks early and even term babies have liver issues at first. but other doctors are trying to steal our faith and our sunshine and tell us they don't believe that to be the issue.

i'm a big believer in speaking your destiny and claiming what you know/want to be true. God is so powerful and almighty and i believe he created my Bellz to be the perfect little girl he intended her to be. that being said- i'm speaking her destiny. we've got an entire team of prayer warriors, people i know and people i haven't yet met, and i believe that God is hearing us.

she has since moved from the isolette to an open crib. she's gaining weight and maintaining her temperature well. other than these high bili levels, she is just absolutely perfect. she's not sick at all. everyone just stares at her and marvels at how gorgeous she is. she is breastfeeding so so well and definitely has adjusted to my flow really well too. i'm a milk machine these days y'all. lol

i'm so anxious for her first meeting with her brother. i need to make sure i have the cameras ready for this special moment. he saw her for about two minutes before they told us he couldn't come into the NICU. :( boo to them.

and as of right now, i feel complete. i feel like our family is right where it needs to be. but i'm not completely opposed to more babies...just somewhere far, FAR down the line.