What a week

Sitting here on Sunday night, I am just in awe of all that has happened in our lives this past week. 

Last Saturday night, Jack and I were in Winter Park FL having a lovely dinner with his dad and brother. When we got back to the hotel, we facetimed with Sally. We showed her our hotel room and the view. We could see the fireworks at Epcot in the distance and down below our balcony, we could hear folks laughing and celebrating. It was a lighthearted, let's kill some time kinda conversation.

The next morning we received that milestone phone call from Sally (see previous post if you haven't already read it). Wow. And from that phone call and up to and including this very moment, all Jack or I can say is "Wow" followed by the other person saying "I know". 

Ellie is still in the NICU. Not that she is "sick", but Ellie is not yet ready to come home. She needs to be able to take all of her nourishment orally and not through an ng tube. We are all so thankful that Ellie is doing so well and we know that it could be so so much more worse and challenging and all of that, but our reality is that it has been a difficult week. And especially so for Matt and Sally. I don't know that it has been stressful for Ellie, because she has had amazing care in the NICU. If it was allowed, Ellie would have had a cast of thousands visiting her. So many people love this girl and have not been able to meet her yet. To put it into perspective, Jack and I have only seen Ellie three times: an hour after she was born, the night she was born and then three days later on Friday evening. As Sally has said, we have to reconcile how we envisioned this birth experience vs the reality of this birth experience. 

Matt and Sally have been making four round trips a day to the NICU. Sally has been pumping eight times each day (and doing well with that too I should mention). Sally is five days postpartum and they just had their first baby. One month early.

That is quite a lot on their plate. 

Through it all, we have watched them place their trust in God. 

That is what it is all about. 

We love our sweet little Ellie and cannot wait to be a part of her life!