Day 4 for Charlotte Jane

Today was a good day...nothing new to report, except one small detail about her chest tube. If you looked at the pictures, you may have noticed that she has a tube coming out of her chest on the left side. Until today, this tube was set to active suction to pull out fluid that has built up around the lungs. Today, this chest tube was set to "gravity" which means it's not actively sucking but open for drainage to naturally flow out. This is great news as hopefully this is the intermediary step between active suction and out altogether. If things go well and it's not pulling out too much fluid, it will be removed. This is great because the tube causes her some discomfort, and we want anything that is potentially causing her pain to be alleviated. Other than that, Charlotte is holding steady and doing about the same as the last couple of days of reporting.

We continued our trend of spending time with the girls in the morning, spending most of the afternoon with Charlotte Jane, spending the evening with the girls, and then going to the hospital after we put the girls to bed. We were even able to sneak in a quick Valentine's date before returning back to pick up the girls from Angela's parents' house. It's really been important for us to maintain as much of a normal schedule as possible, especially to help Lizzie and Lainie feel love and care during this time. Elizabeth asked us this evening if she could pray for baby Charlotte, as well the girls sending kisses via the Lovie that we put in Charlotte's bed.

Tomorrow will be a big day for CJ. We are meeting the neonatologist that will be assigned to Charlotte for the duration of her stay at Cooks. For the past few days, it's pretty much been whatever doctor is there, but starting tomorrow the doctor assigned to her is returning from vacation. We may also find out more on details regarding her little lungs and if we do get those details, we'll know a little more about what that means moving forward.

Prayer Requests

• Pray that the chest drainage would subside so the tube can be removed
• Pray for clarity for us as we meet with the doctor and that we know the right questions to ask
• Wisdom for us as we start to figure out what the "new normal" will look like for us--especially when I return back to work
• Pray for Lizzie and Lainie for peace and understanding as we move through this season.
• Wisdom for the nurses and doctors to know what Charlotte needs since she is not able to communicate it to them.