---The Plateau ---

"I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.  Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.  Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ though it is too great to understand fully." - Eph 3:16-19

I would like to start off this post with saying that Celia is doing well and continues to act like a happy, healthy baby today.  We are very thankful she has caught on to breast-feeding just fine - and she has ended up more skilled in this area than she was at bottle-feeding.  Unfortunately, though, bottle-feeding has become a little more difficult for her.  

At this stage of her life, eating is work, and it appears that bottling makes her expend more energy than she should.  This has left us with a tired little girl who cannot keep growing if she's burning the majority of calories she consumes.  Bottling is even more a struggle now that she has a vitamin and mineral fortified formula that she absolutely detests the taste of.  Julya, Alex, and the hospital team are now going to be spending some time the next couple of days figuring out how to balance all of her different modes of eating (breast-feeding, bottle-feeding, and the feeding tube).  We ask that you pray for creative thinking to come up with the best plan for Celia so that she can have both the QUANTITY and QUALITY of nutrients she needs.  

As it stands right now, we may have to back off of the quantity end and get her quality of feeding back up so she does not spit up, get exhausted, and start thinking of eating as a negative experience.  It seems that gastroschisis babies are highly susceptible to the medical condition of "The Plateau" like we are possibly seeing now.  This is a point where, after a period of recovery - and even thriving - the babies seem to stop progressing for a time.  We've been warned of this before, so it didn't come of too much of a shock that "the p-word" was thrown around for the first time this afternoon.  We still would just like to pray that she continues to progress and does not plateau, as well.  

Thank you all for lifting up Celia in prayer and the continued support you show Alex and Julya.  Please continue to pray for them as they still spend long days and nights in the NICU where they are undoubtedly always a little stressed and don't get the best sleep.  We are so thankful for the expertise of the staff here who have such serving hearts for the babies and their families in the NICU and who are constantly assessing Celia to determine the best medical care for her.  We are also thankful that Julya and Alex DO have the option of staying in a private room with a small bed so that they can all three spend nights together.  We do not EVER want to take the facility for granted!