5/7 update

OK, the flash gives her weird color and it has a preflash which made her close her eyes but you have to love that little smile. I had just told her one of my favorite jokes about the buzzard about to board a plane when the flight attendant asked him if he wanted to check the dead armadillo he was carrying. "No thanks," he said. "It's carrion." I'll be honest. She actually had a puzzled look like many of y'all have right now when she heard that joke. She was really reacting to Pamela making cute noises.

Miss Carissa moved to level 2 NICU today and promptly started wondering what all the crying was about and got a little stressed. When one of the other babies would cry loudly Carissa's oxygen saturation levels would drop to below the 85 they like to see it stay above. When they would calm down her saturation levels went up. This is actually with the oxygen supply on her nasal cannula a little higher than it has been recently. They think she will do better tonight when it quiets down and then start getting more used to it tomorrow. Keep in mind she has gone from the level 3 NICU where there is minimal crying and where she was in an incubator to level 2 where there is significant crying and she is in an open crib. That would stress me a little also.

Carissa did a great job around 6:00 this evening with nursing and we are going to try to get to the hospital a little earlier tomorrow so Pamela can nurse her a few times. It gets a little tricky knowing how much she got versus how much to feed her still.

Some of the big news of the day is that we seem to have a diagnosis...we actually have a diagnosis and hope that is the only one. Carissa does indeed have neonatel alloimmune thrombocytepenia. For those of you not wearing scrubs that is a situation where Pamela built up antibodies that were actually attacking Carissa's platelets. Now, this was not something Pamela decided to do but rather something that happened when our two genetic makeups joined to form Carissa. It seems that our case is different than most and we will hear details of that at an appointment with the hematologist on June 2nd. This is great news because the main treatment as described by Dr. Hankens, the May orange team NICU level 3 doctor, is to cut the cord. In the womb Carissa started getting some of these antibodies as some of Pamela's blood mixed with Carissa's and those antibodies have been dying off and thus having less of an effect on Carissa as each day goes by. During many updates early on we prayed and asked y'all to pray for a diagnosis that would be the most favorable and have the least amount of issues later on and we seem to have it. Carissa still has a long way to go and still needs your prayers very much so please keep interceding for her.

• Please thank God for Carissa's continued progress as well as a diagnosis that has already started treating itself by her being born.
• Please pray that Carissa's lungs will continue to mature and that her breathing will continue to slow down to allow the suck, swallow, breathe combo to work well.
• Please pray that Carissa will settle in to level 2 and be able to decrease her oxygen and start being weaned off the nasal cannula.
• Please pray for Dante's lungs to mature and for his vital signs to strengthen and for his Mom, Misty, who is going back to work next week with a heart that is only working at 30% of strength due to stress from the pregnancy and delivery.
• Please pray that people's faith in our Almighty God is strengthened as they see and hear of His deliverance of Carissa.

We have still not really been given any sort of time table of Carissa being able to come home. The cool thing about level 2 is that every Thursday all the standard neonatal doctors and specialists get together to talk about directions and anticipated departure dates. That Carissa has moved to level 2 where this can even start to be on the radar is a huge answer to prayer and such an incredible blessing to us.

Thank y'all so much for your prayers and please keep them coming,

Terry