Am Dienstag, die Sonne scheint!

Sonne had a good night, though it's still way too early in her recovery to reliably read anything into it.

The best news is there were no major complications. Any of a million things can go wrong and so far they haven't.  Knock on wood.

The second best news is she had many moments of interacting which were purely amazing. Slight finger squeezes, reaction to my voice and touch, great oral activity including sucking her ET tube, some flinching and kicking (she's a notorious wiggler) and best of all eye contact, albeit very drowsy.  All of this is very positive stuff and necessary for her ultimate recovery.  And once again her taking care of us.

On the neutral to negative side, there is no unaided heart rhythm and her kidney flow has virtually shut down after being initially promising.  I categorize these as neutral to negative because they're not abnormal but it would be great if they were doing better. The heart surgeon said getting the heart rhythmic if it doesn't do it on its own is doable.  However we don't expect to really get into that for a few more days after the muscle has healed more. In the meantime, her pacemaker keeps her heart moving. 

As for her kidneys, it's again not uncommon for them to behave as they have. Like the heart, they were really overloaded by the stress of the surgery.  They are basically on dialysis right now. The kidneys may start up again on their own, however they're also very responsive to the heart and likely to jump start when the heart does. 

And as I'm writing this, we've just gotten results back on the other crucial organ, the brain.  Head ultrasound shows no bleeding on the brain. This is hugely important and we're very happy about it. 

There's still a long road ahead for our baby, but our hopes are bolstered. 

At the end of that long road, there will be a rallying cry we love to shout softly even now - Free Sonne!