Having a Ball!

Sloane is doing excellent. She hit 40 weeks gestationally on Friday the 13th, and we are very pleased with her progress. We have finally gotten to a good growth pattern and she has finally gained a little more weight than her birth weight! These are really good things. She is tolerating good feed times with her G tube; having good STATs, and finally at a place that makes us more comfortable. Part of this is Eric and I moving forward with our education and understanding: part of it is also that Sloane is growing and stabilizing, and we are becoming familiar with her needs. We have hit a few little bumps in the road as far as where we belong at Children's Colorado. We are learning that Sloane is a unique case; she is a preemie on a trach collar, that does not need a ventilator. We are learning this is uncommon and often the hospital administration doesn’t have protocol for our situation. Usually preemies have lung issues (I was pumped full of steroids before delivery and S

With of everything that's been going on, Aiden has been meeting with a Child Life Specialist at the hospital. This is a nice, fluffy way of saying Child Psychologist. She has been amazing, and I am very grateful that Children's Hospital has help for us in this way. The last two days, I have had the opportunity to go to the hospital without Aiden, and on Monday, I ran into his specialist and we had a good chat. She told me that Aiden was going to be okay and that most of his behavior is completely normal for any kid who is almost four and now has to learn to deal with shared parental attention with a sibling. She told me kids were adabtable and that nothing I was going to do was going to screw him up for life. She told me the way he's doing play therapy shoed he knew he was very loved, but also showed that he missed attention. We talked for a bit longer and I asked what to do when things get out of hand and he has a meltdown due to seeking negative attention, because

Today is Easter Sunday. Sloane is 11 days old. Every day she has progressed so much and I am in awe of the miracle that she is. She represents so much that is bigger and better than the person I am. One of the good friends I have here wrote me a text the other day that made me totally lose it. She said her little boy learned in church last week that people that are not physically perfect here will be perfected in the resurrection, and then he made the connection with our baby and said, "Sloane Ball will be a perfect version of herself after the second resurrection, Mom. She's perfect on the inside now and will be perfect on the outside when Christ comes again." How is a mom supposed to hear something like that and not just weep?  I believe that whole-heartedly; but it also makes my heart just hurt because I know that Sloane has so many earthly challenges and I just wish it was going to be an easier road. That being said... I want to have that faith. Right now I am v