Rocky End to her 1st Month

We went to bed last night about as anxious as we've been for a couple of weeks now.  We got a call from the nurse around 7pm (about an hour before we usually come in for our nightly visit) & things were looking pretty shaky.  Ella's blood pressure dropped to a low enough level that the doctors & nurses were quite concerned.  Then, when she didn't pee for an extended period of time, the attention turned to her kidneys.  They scheduled an ultrasound due to fears that a clot may have been blocking blood flow.  The cardiologist also came in to look at her & wanted an X-ray to see if there was any fluid accumulation around her heart (like she had when she was born).  They had to insert an arterial line through her wrist so they can constantly measure her blood pressure & draw blood for labs and also insert a cathater to measure her urine output (is there anything less appealing than a cathater?).

They couldn't figure out exactly what caused this little episode,  but speculation is that some combination of going on & off certain medications & changes in those doses - potentially along with her tummy issues - had a negative side effect.  Another thing we hadn't mentioned before was that her last echogram (from a couple days ago) showed a slight decrease in her heart function - around 5%.  And even though it was explained that this was an expected & acceptable result of weening Ella off of a certain IV medication, it only added to our fears & doubts.

When we visited her, she had a splint on one arm for the blood pressure/lab line & had get poked a couple times to establish another IV line so they could give her a blood transfusion (which ended up in a splint on her other arm).  It was the first night in at least 10 days that Christa didn't get to hold her.  It brought us back to the time when we could only helplessly watch her lay there & occasionally squirm around uncomfortably with tubes & wires hanging everywhere.

Double wrist splints are the new look for the holiday season

Just another one of those humbling nights after things had been going seemingly well...

Its weird how, when things appear positive, we can slowly draw away from that state of complete, conscious dependence on God.  Even with the news about Ella's belly, I honestly wasn't super concerned because she looked so good & I was confident that God was simply going to take care of it.  But last night kind of caught us by surprise.  I was reminded once again how fragile this little princess is, despite how hard she's fighting & what she's overcome - and ultimately how fragile all of our lives are.

And this morning seemed like a reminder of God's faithfulness.  I called the hospital about 30 seconds after I woke up to relatively good news.  Her blood pressure had stabilized at a more normal & acceptable range.  The kidney ultrasound showed no signs of a clot & the X-ray indicated nothing new & potentially detrimental to the heart.  Kind of like He's saying, "Don't worry, I got this."

As we reflect on Ella's 1-month birthday today - which also happens to be my 31st - we keep seeing this pattern: the more control we think we (or the nurses, or the doctors) have of the situation, the less we really have.  When we are confident in ourselves, we get humbled.  When we humble ourselves, God comes in & gives us confidence.  And its amazing how much more comforting it is to be in God's confidence than our own.  Lord, please help us to remember that every day.

Is this her cutest picture yet?  She continues to melt our hearts...