What a difference a pound makes!

Mckinley is now 3 lbs. 1 oz. and we can see every bit of it. When we see her everyday it's hard to remember how small she was. Then one day we had another set of parents that have a baby in the NICU come by her bed and say...wow I can't wait until our child is that big. I couldn't believe it but looking back going from two to three pounds is huge for her. It's such a joy seeing her grow. Her heart murmur is gone (praise God!) and her breathing is progressing so quickly. She is on room air, not getting any oxygen and she is on level 2 for the pressure they are giving her lungs. Just last week she was on 4 and is working her way down quickly! She started by taking one little cc of milk every three hours and now she is on 28 cc's every three hours and gaining about an ounce a day. Hopefully next week we can try giving her a bottle which I can't wait for. Today Brandon and I get to give her a bath and we've never been able to do that before. We love every new thing we get to experience with her. We still kangaroo with her everyday and she's still pulling out all of her tubes. She's just great.

God also continues to use her in our lives in a mighty way. This is what God taught me through her just recently. It was a particularly rough day for her. So as I was holding her I told her that I knew it was so hard right now and that she was having to fight so much. But I told her not to give up. That we were with her and going to hold her and help her fight. That if she could keep fighting she would get to come home with us soon. We were getting together a beautiful room for her that had no beeping machines, no nurses talking all the time and waking her up, and no other babies crying. It was a place where her Mommy and Daddy could hold her anytime they wanted to, give her kisses and hugs and make sure she has everything she needs. And best of all she would be free from everything that made life so hard for her right now.

As I was finishing telling her this I felt God say the same thing to me and I believe He says this to all His children as we face the hard times of life...I'm holding you right now. I know it's hard but I am fighting with you. I am preparing a beautiful place for you where you will hurt no more. If you just keep fighting and stay faithful one day you will come home and find the perfect peace you long for. No more cancers, sins, diseases or loss. You will be free from these things and you will see me and be with me always.

I think having a child does give us a better understanding of God and how he loves us. Just like it breaks my heart to see her hurt, so it hurts His to see us that way. He hurts when we hurt and He holds us through it all. What a wonderful God we serve. And He is helping us fight through this time. It's hard to leave her there and we miss her so much when we are home. We have both said that we don't feel quite right when she isn't with us, like a part of us is missing. But it's almost been six weeks already and we know this is only a season. She will be home soon.

Another praise is she got to move to another room. The NICU is completely full right now and they are getting new babies in all the time. Out of all the babies in the room, Mckinley was the most stable so they picked her to move. We love it because it gives us a little more privacy and it was great to hear that she was doing so well! Overall, we certainly can't complain. She is beautiful, gaining weight, breathing well, learning new things, and loves to cuddle with us. And she loves to pose for pictures. Haha those are pictures we will always treasure. It's hard to have a heavy heart around her because she always makes it light.

Well, we had a wonderful first Christmas with Mckinley...and New Year's. I thought this process would drag out very slowly but I can't believe how fast it's going by. On Christmas morning they weighed her and for the first time she was above her birth weight. We said she was just trying to give us a Christmas gift, and we loved it! Now as I'm writing this she is all the way up to 2lbs 6 oz! Overall she's been doing well. They did have to give her a second round of treatment for her heart murmur and they said they can't hear it anymore but we are waiting until Monday to hear back from the cardiologist to find out for sure if it's closed up.

It's been amazing to us that even though Mckinley was born so early, she is so perfectly formed. Everything is just extra tiny. But it's also amazing that she already has a little personality. Well, even though she's little I don't think anyone would call her personality little. We've had a lot of different nurses and even nurses that aren't assigned to her tell us the same thing. They use different words but they are all similar...stubborn, scrappy, fiery, fireball etc. We see it so clearly in her as well, and it makes me laugh. As you can see in the picture she does NOT like all the tubes and wires connected to her. So she found a solution...just pull them out. She has even pulled out the feeding tube that goes all the way into her stomach. The breathing tubes took her a couple days to figure out. She started to pull on the tape on her cheek, but didn't have the strength to pull the tape off. So she eventually learned that she could get them out by pulling directly on the part in her nose. The nurses used every tape they could use on her and put it on in every way they usually do, but eventually had to start inventing new ways to put the tape on because she kept figuring it out. She's stubborn as she can be, and they are just hoping her strength doesn't catch up with her will at least until she doesn't need all of that anymore.

But we thank God that she is like that. The nurses keep saying just wait until she is two or three years old, or even worse...a teenager, but we just love it. That girl is a fighter, and while that may be hard when she is older and strong-willed, I know that God made her like that so she could not only fight through this, but eventually use that for His glory. I knew she was doing well and was fighting hard, but I don't think I knew how well she was doing until I went to my doctor this week. He was talking about the precautions I would need to take during my next pregnancy because in his mind this was "worst case scenario". He said that we couldn't even say...well at least if I can make it to 26 weeks again...because he said that he would never expect another baby to do as great as she was doing. He said it was a pretty rare case. He came to visit her the day before and was shocked to see and hear how well she was doing. We are just so thankful. If she was even a couple weeks earlier she wouldn't have had a chance, but God brought her just far enough along and gave her that strong will so that she could survive and start having her testimony shared and already start telling of the power of God. She's one amazing, scrappy little girl with already such an amazing story. Praise God.