bird on the wire(s)

<Julie writing> We found out today is that Nettie's surgery will now be the 2nd one in the day rather than the first. The upside to this is that we'll be able to hold her in the morning beforehand. They're estimating her surgery will begin between 11am-1pm. We hope to get more skin-to-skin time and I'm sure some cries. But we both feel better when we hold her. We know this contact is suppose to be good for her and it's pretty evident that it is, but Lou and I both agree that it's very good for us!

While hanging out with Nettie, Lou was cracking his corny dad jokes, of course. He was betting that Nettie will think he's funny until she's 13, maybe 12. Teasingly, I thought he might be overestimating this age. We talked about starting a pool to see what age Nettie will stop thinking her dad is funny, any takers? I've got my money on 11.

<now Lou> Overall, it was another really great day with Nettie. We got a lot of skin to skin time in, we met her surgen, talked to the anesthesiologist, and the Chaplin said a beautiful prayer for Nettie where she talked about eating ice cream with Nettie in the future, and how, even if we were Bill and Melinda Gates, we'd still be at this hospital for Nettie's surgery. Julie and I were bawling our eyes out, but it was a good cry.

This morning I played some songs on the ukulele for Nettie Maude, and she opened her eyes! Her eyes have mainly been closed, partly due to the drug that is allowing her blood to mix and keep her alive before surgery. Her eyes were also open when we came in this evening after dinner (one small bonus to all this as new parents is that we have a full time nurse and we get to go eat, rest, and shower, while someone takes care of Nettie). We still can't really tell if they're brown or dark dark blue, they have this captivating quality to them though. Plus we've heard kids eyes can change color early on, or something like that.

We wanted to include this photo to better show how many wires are attached to Nettie right now, especially because after the surgery, there will be a lot more. In most of her pictures, she's swaddled, so its hard to see what's really going on. We're so happy that we can hold her now, but we can't wait until she's better and we can pick her up without worrying about a vital IV falling out. Our really sweet nurse tonight, Keri, was telling us how the nurses have to remind themselves that this isn't normal for the parents. It was actually very reassuring to hear. I'm glad we're at a hospital where this seems normal. If you look closely at the pillow to the right of Nettie, you can see the beanie baby version of our dog, Belafonte, so miss Maude can get acquainted with her in the hospital.