Two Worlds Apart

One of the most difficult things about Aiden being in the NICU is that sweet Anna is still expecting and needing life to go on as usual. These two precious little ones have still not met and as a week is approaching since the birth of Aiden confusion has filled Anna's life.
Our first born needs lots of attention right now, in particular from her mommy and daddy. She is understandably not able to grasp all that is going on. She is a child that needs structure and order and this has thrown her for a loop. She is having a rough time with not seeing the baby that we talked about for so long but seeing me pump and us leaving and coming and having little time for her. Please be praying for her. In particular that she would be at peace in the midst of this chaos. You can just see her little mind going. She is constantly asking questions and trying to process it all. She knew mommy was having a baby and now mommy doesn't have the belly where the baby was but she doesn't see a baby. Pray too that both Kevin and I would have patience with her and love her well. She isn't used to having our attention divided. We have tried yesterday and today to make our days look as normal as possible. Anna actually had her preschool orientation today and then we headed to the park for a bit with some of her favorite friends. As I sit here and type this I can hear her laughing outside with her daddy. Pray too for us as we try to be parents now to both Anna and Aiden.

As for an Aiden update. I spent a good bit of time with him around lunchtime. During this time he was able to be disconnected from the IV. As for now they will keep it in but it is capped. This is a HUGE praise as we are hoping now that he is not receiving the fluids from the IV that possibly his feedings will begin to be better. He has been up and down as far as his feedings. He has had one feeding today where he took the entire bottle but the two feedings before he did not take any of the bottle and received it all through the feeding tube. Most of his feedings last night were half by bottle and half through the feeding tube. Another praise is that I was able to attempt to nurse Aiden. More or less it was just to get him used to being near me. He actually received his feeding through the feeding tube. During our late night visit with him last night we asked the nurse for her best guesstimate of when she thought he would be heading home. She thought best case scenario was Tuesday of next week. Kevin and I were really hoping that it would be this weekend. After hearing that news we decided we wanted to talk to the doctor to see if there was anything we could do to speed up the process or at least give him the best case scenario for coming home sooner. When Kevin went for his morning visit the NICU doctor who was with us when we delivered Aiden happened to be there. One of the things he noted was that Aiden's bed was raised and in order for him to go home he needs to be sleeping flat. As you can see from the picture above we rectified that situation. We also got the okay to go ahead and get them to schedule his circumcision, another thing that needs to be completed before heading home. Several things like this were taken care of and we feel as though we are heading in the right direction. Please be praying that Aiden would be able to come home soon but that it would be in His perfect time.