Full Speed Ahead

Well, the past few days have been a whirlwind. We have had lots of family in town and it has kept us busy! The response from Hayden's news segment has been crazy. Mandy Murphey's report was shared on Facebook via the Fox 2 website over 1,000 times, 4 times on Twitter, and even once on Pinterest! Kelsea and I are so happy that God is showing others His love through Hayden's journey and hopefully giving other families who might be facing similar or difficult situations hope that and faith that He loves them and He wouldn't lead them to their place in life if He wouldn't lead them through it. On Thursday, there were also over 1,000 page views on this blog, which was absolutely crazy! The more we travel on this journey and the more people that join us, the more I want to keep everybody up to date!

Hayden has been doing awesome on his feeds. He is currently getting roughly 80 ml in a one hour period (that is his current feeding goal) and starting last night, over half of that is coming from a bottle feed. He is becoming quite the hungry little boy and is taking his bottle feeds like a champ! His Omphalocele is getting smaller every day.....still pretty big, but I can tell by the amount of dressing that is used to cover it, there is more and more left over every day! Kelsea and I have taken over the dressing changes because we will be responsible for that once we go home. Speaking of home, our main doctor last week mentioned that if his feeding still progresses like it has, we could possibly be looking at heading home as early as the end of this week. We are not getting our hopes up just yet, and nothing is set in stone, but it is getting closer! The nurse also told me last night in response to some questions I had, that as they prepare the baby for heading home, they will start to do this and that! Wow! Preparing for heading home..... How awesome did those words sound! On Monday we will do our CPR class and then we have to watch some videos.

Another thing we will have to figure out before we head home is the car seat situation. After doing my research on Consumer Reports, and talking to a few friends, we purchased the Chicco Keyfit 30 travel system (car seat and stroller). However, as was before, our current concern is if we will be able to use a regular car seat. We have read on different websites and blogs how PT's and OT's from different hospitals have been able to create/mold a protective shell/harness that would adapt the car seat to fit safely around the omphalocele. The problem is where the harnesses come down and buckle into the bottom is right where his "O" is and it is probably not the best to have that pressure right against it. I wrote about my frustrations with this problem in the post titled Perfection and how I didn't want him to have to go home in a "bed" laying down. Well, we might be travelling down that parth and even though it is not what I want, if that is what God wants and what it takes to get him home, then tell me where to sign up! Besides performing level II/III ultrasound out of my basement, I am going to add to my list of jobs to do in my spare time.....manufacture an alternative to the Hope Car Bed. I think I could retire from teaching! If you want to check out the link, check out the pictures/facial expression of the baby used. I love how they use "psychology" to make you feel like your baby will LOVE the bed they are selling!

The nurse who came on at 7 was just talking to me and said we probably need to start preparing NOW for going home! As I said earlier, we don't want to get our hopes up, but something has been telling me that by this time next week, we will be waking up in our own bed! Praise God and good job Hayden! Full speed ahead buddy!