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.