Since our last post, Haven has struggled with a couple of issues. Last night, though she was tolerating milk through her feeding tube, her body didn’t seem to know just what to do with it from a digestive standpoint. At surface level, it appears that when food goes into her stomach it stays there and doesn’t move on through the system. Therefore, as food keeps going in, it just inflates her stomach more and more until the natural reaction is to throw it all back up. So, they have decided to stop her feeding until they can do some testing to figure out what the problem is exactly. Specialists in that field will be joining her doctors’ team soon.

However, those digestive problems may have been put on hold because around 3:30 this morning, Haven started having trouble breathing again. Basically, her little body is just having to work too hard to completely expel all the “bad air” in her lungs. It’s 5:30am now, and they have decided to put her back on the ventilator before she tires out completely. Once they get her breathing back under control with the breathing machine, they will try to find out why she is having so much trouble. It’s somewhat perplexing to them (and us) because she did really well for several days on her own, but she’s showing everyone that she needs help and just isn’t quite ready to do all the work on her own at this time.

When we first met Haven’s heart surgeon shortly after she was born, he told us about the severity of her heart condition and that getting through it would be a roller coaster. It certainly has been and no doubt will continue to be, but we’re riding it with her the whole way until she’s ready to do things on her own. Even though going on the ventilator isn’t ideal, we’re thankful for the progress she has made thus far, and hopeful that she’ll continue to progress. It’s her third time on the ventilator, but hopefully her last.