Today is the Day You Have Made.....

.......I will rejoice and be glad in it!

We have been praising God during this crazy time of our lives and we have been praying hard for His provision and comfort.  We have been feeling his love surround us and we have been feeling his comfort more than anyone could ever know! Thanks so much for everyone's prayers, we feel them...we really do!

Well today, and each day we receive any positive news on Sam, we rejoice as the Lord rejoices over His creation who is healing!  Yesterday we had a great visit, but today was even better!!!!!

When we went in this afternoon, we weren't expecting much.  This is usually when Sam is sound asleep and Johnny and I fiddle on Facebook or take some sleeping pictures of her or something like that. Last night Nurse John let us know that we may not get to hold her again because of her belly button IV.  He wanted us to hold her but knew some other nurses may not feel as comfortable letting us hold Sam.  So today when we went, it was time to feed Sam.  Cheryl {the Nurse on Duty} let us know that we were going to get to feed Sam today!  She pulled up a chair and let us hold and feed her :)  Obviously she's not too worried about her IV, and that's just fine with us!!!

Cheryl also gave us some other good news!  Sam had bottle fed all night and was not fed through her feeding tube at all!  She kept all her food down and they were upping her fluids from 25 ml to 30 ml and later today they were going to up her to 35 ml as long as she handled the 30 ml fine.  Also her oxygen was changed too.  She is breathing at 21% right now which is what you and I breathe everyday, so that is good news!!  She was taking in 7 Liters of oxygen each day, but they were going to lower her count each day by 1 Liter.  Today she was down to 2 Liters {that's right, 2} and doing really well!  We left her this afternoon with a sense of accomplishment!  They are pushing Sam to do great things, and she is rising to the challenges!  Team Stout!!!!

When we went back tonight, Nurse John was there and he admitted that he was worried about getting in trouble for what he let us do last night with Sam.  He didn't get in trouble :)  I have a feeling he only would have gotten in trouble if she had regressed because of something he did.  On the contrary, Sam was improving because of what he did!  Anywho, we walked in, and he asked "Notice anything missing??"

Our sweet Sam has no oxygen tubes and her feeding tube is gone!!!!!!!!!  John said that she hadn't had a feeding through the tube all day and she was keeping everything down, so he just took the tube out!  Then he said she was doing really well on the oxygen and he just tried her without it and she was doing equally as well, so he just took that tube out too!  Since both tubes have been gone, she has still been feeding with a bottle only {we got to feed her again tonight :)} and she has been upped to 35 ml.  She sucked that milk down so fast it wasn't even funny!  On top of that awesomeness, the entire time we were holding her, her breathing was staying between the 40 and 60 breaths per minute mark!!  This kid is a serious champ!  

{Look Ma, no tubes!}

{Just look at those pinchable cheeks!!!  She's precious right??}

Now the question that comes out of everyone's mouth next is "Great, when does she get to come home".  Believe me, we want to know that info too!  We are going to try and go in tomorrow when the doctor is visiting to see if we can get an answer to that question!  The only thing John said needs to happen for her to be "take home ready" is that we need to replace what she is getting in her IV each hour with milk.  Once the milk takes place of the IV fluid, and she is off everything for a few days, she should be able to come home with us!!!

All in all, a great day in the NICU for Samantha Lynn!  She's a week old already and I'm so glad she is getting better!  Please continue to pray for Sam's healing, and that Johnny and I would continue to feel God's peace surround us during this time!  We love y'all and thanks for keeping up with us!!