Happy Thanksgiving!

"Ooh, shiny...I'll take those!"

Technically it's Thanksgiving now, but we still get to go to sleep for a bit before the feast. Speaking of feasts, Karsie gets to feed by mouth tomorrow for the first time in a few weeks. We are excited to see her get some food. However, we're not on breast milk (yet); we're on Elecare, so she will probably hate the taste, but hopefully not eating for weeks can persuade the pickiest of eaters.

She is currently getting 19 mL of formula every hour which translates to 58 mL every 3 hours (she was at 70mL when we took her back to the hospital). She is continuing to increase 1 mL of volume every 6 hours. Unless you're an amazing mathematician (hi Todd) we'll just tell you that it means she will be at her admission volume tomorrow night and at her approximate target volume (78 mLish) Friday (they increased her target volume because of her weight gain and age). She has been tolerating her feedings well so far. She did gag pretty hard tonight only a couple of times, but they said she could do that due to the fundoplication (and she has lots of saliva too). However, she's pooping like a champ so things are moving through.

We think if everything goes perfectly that we could be out as soon as early this next week. That's our hope at least. She is weighing about 8 lbs. 5 oz. That changes day to day, but we think we've hit her actual weight (she was much heavier after surgery as she retained fluids).

Finally, Karsie has been very content and downright happy lately. She just sits and stares for long periods of time trying to get everything in. In fact, we can tell that she is about to just crash but tries to stay awake because she wants to look around. She has started to talk a bit (cooing) and smiles very easily. She still has a pretty weak neck as she has been on her back for weeks and weeks, so we've decided to try and get her to practice holding her head up when we get a chance. She was doing fairly well tonight, but we can't do any of the natural things to help her with that like tummy time or holding her over our shoulder (as babies practice holding their heads up then). So we are trying to encourage the skill.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving... we wanted to acknowledge some things we are thankful for!

First of all we are thankful for our new family of three! We are so happy to have our incredible little Karsie Gene. She is such a fighter and she continues to amaze us. We are so glad to be on this journey together. We are able to pull strength from each other daily and neither of us could do it without the other.
We are thankful for supportive families. We are so grateful for the love and support they have offered. We are thankful for a place to stay in San Diego to be close to Karsie. We have enjoyed being able to spend time with our families.
We are thankful for incredible friends. We have friends all over offering to help us in any way they can. We haven't had to worry about things like a bum refrigerator or mail or the sprinklers. Having friends to come along and help lift some of the load has made a huge difference.
And we are thankful for prayers. We are overwhelmed (all the time) by the comments, emails, letters, calls we get from people letting us know they are praying for the three of us. We know that is just the tip of the iceberg. We will never be able to count all the prayers that have been sent up on our behalf... and for that we are incredible thankful.
We are blessed!
Wishing you a VERY Happy Thanksgiving!
Kevin, Michelle and Karsie