Babe in arms

Week two was a special one for the Merchants--Diane and John got to hold their darling little daughter for the first time. Big brother Lucas watched with great interest.

Emma's reports continue to be good. She's now a whopping 1 lb, 4 oz. Last night she put on 10% of her body weight--Diane says the docs say you can literally see these little babies grow before your eyes. She's tolerating her feedings well. They've been increasing the amount of nourishment she's getting every day but stopped today, because some of her levels--glucose, potassium, sodium, etc--were off. She now has a continuous feed line that will help keep her levels, well, level and keep pumping milk into her. She's also getting a milk fortifier that helps her gain even more weight. Sort of like those protein powders folks use, ya think? (Now you know why I'm a writer, not a pediatrician.)

Diane's working on getting some pix uploaded to this site so we can see the little sweet pea. She has a lot of hair and her skin tone looks a lot better than it did when she was first born. She is just an adorable, teeny little girl.

Diane expressed tremendous gratitude for all the support they're getting from family and friends--bringing food, sending cards, calling with words of good cheer. It's hard for Di and John to not be able to introduce Emma to all of us right now, but it's just so important to limit her exposure to infection. Thankfully, there's a decent photographer in their family (ha!) so I'm sure we'll get many opportunities to get to know Emma, in a pixelated form.