Emma's not an illegal resident anymore.

Emma's social security card came today! So maybe she was never illegal exactly, but still. It felt pretty crazy to get that in the mail and realize what an important piece of information that is for this little person who we're now in charge of.

The day was off to a great start when I realized that one of our favorite nurses thus far was looking after Emma. She is WONDERFUL. That really made my day through 3:00 when she left. After she left, I've been pretty satisfied with the other nurses so far - not thrilled, but definitely not upset. I know for a fact that at least our nurse last night and our nurses today were handpicked by the nursing supervisor I spoke with. I'm still feeling pretty good about the changes that have been made after my discussion with her, and I hope that I don't have to have that talk AGAIN. We're still dealing with an incision that's much, much less than desirable, a nasty case of diaper rash (literally, raw skin...poor baby), occasional diarrhea (imagine how that feels on raw skin!!), and slowly increasing amounts of spinal fluid on her brain. Emary was awake a lot more today than she usually is, and it's pretty hard to entertain her with such limited options. Shoot, she and we would just settle for putting her on her back!

Dr. Troup came in today and didn't seem surprised that Emma's incision looked unchanged. The antibiotics aren't a continuous drip; she gets one kind every 24 hours and one kind every 12 hours. He said that we'd start to see results in 4 to 5 days. This doesn't mean that she'll be healed in 4 to 5 days; it could actually get worse and then we'll see a turning point. After that, who knows how long it will take to completely heal? Because there was some question over whether or not the incision was infected, I asked again today, point blank, "So you DO think it's infected?", and he said YES. This is what I understood from him yesterday as well, but the dodo nurse didn't seem to think that's what he said at all. Can you tell I'm still harboring a little bitterness over Emma's nursing care? I think it's time for me to let that go...

I'm not usually the type of person who asks God, "Why?" It's usually a pretty futile exercise, and I trust Him enough to understand that we're not always meant to understand why things happen...because I trust and understand that He only works for our good and not to harm us. But I admit that there are certain times that I do ask why because things are just so unreasonably unfair and...JUST NOT RIGHT. I have to admit that I've been pretty angry at Him for brief moments of time over the past 6 months that we've known about Emma's spina bifida. How could something like this happen to an innocent baby who has done nothing wrong and who is coming into this world at a huge disadvantage from Day 1?! But I also know that it's ok to be angry and upset...these are real emotions that I have to own up to and deal with through prayer and just generally through my relationship with the Lord before I can begin to really move on. These days I find myself on a roller coaster of anger, grief, exhaustion, despair, brief glimpses of hope, and joy over our new baby girl when she's sleeping peacefully and not hurting. Plenty of good people have dealt with some pretty horrible things, and I haven't asked why...I DO ask why when it comes to babies, though. In my mind, babies can't cope...they don't know to pray or ask for help, can't call a friend or even communicate where something hurts and how it hurts. This does not seem right to me. They do things that harm themselves, but they don't know not to do it (i.e., pulling out 2 IV's when you haven't even been breathing fresh air for an hour). As we have watched our problems snowball over the last week, I think, I THINK, a lesson (not necessarily the only lesson, but A lesson) is that right this moment, the spina bifida thing isn't a big deal. An infected incision is a very big deal. I realize that this time we're in the hospital dealing with these specific things is a small amount of time compared to the years of therapy and "training" that we have ahead of us. I'm sure there will be times when despair will set in again because we won't be able to say, "This should clear up in a couple weeks." But for now - I think I'm supposed to be learning that I should be thankful in the future that we're not battling a gaping, infected wound or racing the clock for shunt surgery to relieve fluid pressure on her brain.

Quick side note: a NICU nurse and a woman who takes blood from these babies both have children with spina bifida. I really think this birth defect is more common than we know.

This up close and personal video is not all that exciting. We're pretty sure that Emma's going to be a talker because the noises you hear in this video are the general noises we hear from her all the time, asleep or awake. My sweet husband spent the night on Wednesday night and slept a total of an hour because every time she made a peep, he jumped up and made sure she was still asleep and generally ok. So if you know Russell, you can watch this video and appreciate the image of Russell jumping and examining her at every sound. Daddy's a sucker already :) It's a little close because I was holding the camera while she was lying on her tummy on my lap.