Continued Progress

It has been a long time since the last update and a lot of progress has been made. Kirby has now been off the ventilator for almost 2 weeks and is doing great! She is getting stronger each day. They are now only taking blood to monitor her gases twice a week as opposed to daily, she is no longer getting daily x-rays to take a look at her lungs, respiratory therapy is no longer doing therapy, her feeds are compressed to 2.5 ounces over 1 hour with 2 hours off as opposed to continuous feeds of 2.5 ounces over 4 hours, she is now 8 lbs and we are getting to hold her more and more. The doctors are pleased with her progress. They did another echo this week for the first time in a week or 2 and the valve appears to still be leaking a lot but she is handling it very well, so for now, they are just going to keep watching her and see how she does. She is still on oxygen through a nasal canula and they are slowly weaning her down on that support. There is a possibility we may move to a room very soon which means we will be able to stay with her at night and taking care of her most of the time. After talking with the doctors, they have basically told us to plan to be here until her next surgery but it will all depend on how she does over the next few weeks. If she continues to grow well, they will be able to do the second surgery early (around 4 months instead of between 6-9 months). I went home for the first time for a 24 hour period last Thursday and then came back and went home Monday morning and came back Tuesday morning. It was very tough leaving her but also refreshing to see my house and take care of a few things back home. 2 1/2 months is a long time. Thank you for your continued prayers. God is good and is continually revealing himself through this journey. I will try to get some pictures uploaded soon.