First thing: We have the cutest baby ever. On the planet. Just look at the picture in the sidebar  -------->

Unfortunately, our sweet little nugget is stuck in the NICU, trying to recover from getting ripped out of her happy little womb-home. 
Due to the barrage of loving/concerned emails, phone calls, questions, text messages, and facebook posts that have come our way in the last week, it became clear that we need to streamline our communication. Despite the best intentions, it has been wearing on us to share information one individual at a time.
It was either this blog or a homemade t-shirt for Josh that reads "Don't ask me how I am doing. My baby is in a box 30 miles away."
This blog is now your one-stop-shop for information, pictures and updates. I will try to update it as often as possible, so keep checking back to see her progession.

Here is Josh's contribution:
Me: "What should we say in this blog?"
Josh: "Our daughter is neat."
True, true. She is pretty much the coolest person I have ever met. You would think that it would be too soon for her to exhibit much of a personality, but she definitely has a unique and beautiful spirit to her. She is feisty, stubborn, resourceful (ex. while Josh had her arms pinned down to take her temperature, she started pushing him away with her feet), sweet, expressive, strong, perseverant and freakin' adorable. I could just sit and stare at her all day -- good thing, because that's about all I am allowed to do at this point. Both Josh and I are literally aching for the day that we get to hold her for the first time.

Here is her current status:
- She is on a ventilator -- her little lungs aren't quite strong enough to do it on their own at this point. She was actually off her ventilator for a day or two, but had an episode in the middle of the night where she stopped breathing and she had to be intubated again. Lame sauce. But it's good that she's getting all the air she needs.
- She gets her nutrition and meds via IV. For a while she had a PICC line and an umbilical line, but those were both removed today. The good news? Her PICC line site was gross and irritated, so it must be nice for her to have it gone. The bad news? Her IV's don't last more than a couple days, so she has to have the site changed fairly often.
- She is currently fighting an infection. We aren't quite sure the source or site of the infection, but she is on two pretty heavy duty antibiotics. Pray that her blood tests come back negative on Friday!
- She was getting 3 cc's of breast milk every couple hours, but her stomach is currently producing some nasty colored junk that they have to suction out through a tube in her mouth, so they stopped the breastmilk for now. Hopefully her belly will get better quick, so they can keep stimulating her gut to get her ready for nutritive breastmilk feedings. That way I won't be pumping in vain :)

That's all that I can think of right now. Honestly, I am way too tired to be creating a blog. If it sucks, I blame it on the fact that I have to wake up every three hours to pump. Ugh.

Love you all, and keep praying. We have a long way to go, but we are so thankful not to be walking it alone!