"A word aptly spoken"

Sophie in her first outfit. (Don't worry, she's not missing a finger)
Mattie still loves to flail around. It's really not that easy to dress a baby. It's even harder to do it through a box with holes in the side when they have about 5 or 6 monitors and wires coming off of them!

I love it when they grab my finger. She's sleeping good here, but when Mattie got her PICK line out, the worst part was pulling the tape off. She had a death grip on me! We don't like hearing painful screams though. I don't have a chance. (I'm sorry, Papa for picking on you for spoiling Amber)

I'm pretty sure that we were the talk of the doctors and nurse practitioners for a couple of days after we found out about Mattie's PVL. When the doctor was explaining to us what PVL was and what it could lead to, we, of course, understood about every third word. I asked for information to read on it, and still couldn't really comprehend what I was reading enough to really digest everything that was said. All we knew really was that there had been some incident(s) similar to a stroke at some point for Mattie and she was more than likely going to have some serious developmental problems. We would just have to wait until she is 18 months old to really start to see what those would be. Of course, I wanted to know more about it, and exactly what was going on, so I decided I would bring my dad into it (he is a family doc) to help explain it to us.

Apparently, asking for a picture of the ultrasound to show to another doctor puts doctors into a slightly uncomfortable position. :) The doctor who explained it to us first came back in to talk to me again. Then a nurse practitioner tried to work with us. Then our doctor for the next two weeks made a point to come explain it again. We do have a better understanding of it, but we are still getting the pics to my dad...if for no other reason than to keep them on their toes. I'm thinking about asking for a second opinion on everything now, just to keep them guessing!

Dr. Rush, who is our resident doctor for the next week or so was the last to talk to us. She told us everything we already knew. However, her tone of voice was completely different than the original explanation. We had gotten used to nurses ducking their heads when we mentioned PVL. Dr. Rush, on the other hand, still gave the same possibilities of permanent damage, but did so in a much less negative and "doom and gloom" way. She mentioned that the brain can compensate in incredible ways. At some point, Amber and I both picked up on her much less scary explanation and realized that she was making it sound like it was a rather small area that had been affected. I asked to be sure, and her words, I think, were, "oh yeah, small."

I'm pretty sure that "small" could count as "a word aptly spoken" as the Proverbs writer says. He says those words are like "apples of gold in settings of silver." We still know that Mattie's future is still uncertain, but Dr. Rush's coming to talk with us left us feeling much better about things. As far as uncertain futures go for that matter, so is Sophie's, mine, Amber's, your's, and every baby, child, teen, adult, and elder in this world. God is in control. (Thanks for reminding me of that, mom:)

Sophie got her pick line (basically an IV that starts in the arm and follows the vein all the way to the heart) out yesterday, so both girls are styling and profiling now. My in-laws went shopping...let's just say the girl's drawers are full of preemie clothes and all the nurses are talking about how cute they are. Mattie has grown to 3lbs 2oz and Sophie is right behind at 2lbs 15oz. I was excited today because I finally got to hold Mattie for more than 5 minutes before she had to go up. For the last several days, I've had to put my baby away because she couldn't keep her O2 level up while I was holding her. We switch babies every day and apparently both of them just like Amber better. I guess I must really stink. Oh well, they'll get used to it. :)