A great Saturday

Saturday was officially our first good Saturday.
We arrived around 10:30AM to find out that Abby just had her head tapped and had 8 CC's of spinal fluid taken from her head through the reservoir. Before this, she was spelling quite a bit. While spells can be caused by a lot of things, it does seem that in this case, Abby was having her spells because of the increased pressure on her brain. Shortly after the tapping, she was clearly relaxed again.

So! Daddy got to kangaroo hold Abby for the 1st time! It was fantastic. She was very comfortable and so was Daddy. They sat together for close to three hours (remember, kangaroo holding is skin to skin with little Abby right on Daddy's chest!).

Abby is up to 10 CC's of breast milk every three hours. Today they're increasing her calorie intake as well in order to help her gain weight! We'll let you all know what she weighs in at later. I tend to have these little eye opener kind of thoughts during this experience and one is that I never thought that my baby would be so small that I would have to drop down to using the gram measuring scale instead of pounds and ounces. But that's okay because she is so increadibly cute at this size and I can hardly stand it.

We still and will always have Abby's head to be concerned with. I spoke with the neurosurgeon yesterday, and Abby will definitely need a shunt. A shunt is a tube that goes from her brain to her stomach that will drain the spinal fluid. This will eventually take place of the reservoir. We just need to wait until Abby is good and healthy before she gets it in. We're anxious for this so Abby's head doesn't build up like it did yesterday and cause some discomfort. The shunt will allow her brain to consistently pass the fluid out of her brain without this build up.

So... all in all, your prayers are working wonderfully. Keep them up. Pray for continued strength, weight gain, and of course toss in a request for a miracle regarding her little head.

Our love to all. We're off to the hospital! Have a great Sunday.
Kelly and Ryan

P.S. In the picture, the bracelet on her arm is daddy's wedding ring!