Final Echo & the TOUR!

Eli's heart is pretty much the same as before, just a larger version of it. They did make it a point to tell us that his leaking is still mild so no concern to have any further Echo's which was a huge surprise to me. I was supposed to get one more before delivery. He is doing well and doesn’t need them. So we were not going to argue that! Eli is also weighing in at 4lbs at 32 weeks. I feel like this is big. Lucas weighed 8.7lbs at birth and I just have this ODD feeling that Eli is going to overcome the statistics for HLHS babies and outweigh his big brother. This for Eli is fantastic. HLHS babies need to weigh as much as possible to sustain those surgeries after birth...This for mama bear, sucks! I gain a lot of weight in my last few weeks of pregnancy and Eli will probably gain most of his weight during this time point as well! I feel like he’s huge already just at 4lbs! Crazy to think he’s got 8 weeks left!

They arranged a tour of the CICU for us, so we got to see the facilities as well as a few places for Lucas to spend some time while his little brother is recovering. The lady showed us different areas of where Eli will be staying and recovering. She answered a lot of our questions, from pumping to breastfeeding to leaving toys with him when we're not there to staying overnight to well, everything we could think of. It was a huge weight off of our shoulders I think, to know exactly where we will be for his first weeks of birth. They emphasize keeping things as normal for Lucas as possible. It started to break my heart knowing their may be nights I won’t get to tuck Lucas into bed because I will have to stay with Eli in the CICU. It’s a lot to digest today. But I think it’s good for us to know. So when I am hit with the separation stick, it won’t hurt as bad!

I think Danny & I both felt that we're in really good hands there. Not that we're looking forward to making that home for several weeks, but everyone seems so wonderful and the place is so well-equipped for little heart babies... I guess there's a reason why people travel from all over the world to take their children there.

xoxo