Subject: 10/25/02 Kraig, Loren & Keren Update

Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 19:11:56 -0400

From: Kraig Warnemuende <ad6075@wayne.edu>

Dear Friends and Family,

I've been working on getting to the computer for a good day now in order to get out our latest update--amazing how fast the day goes by without accomplishing much beyond feeding and holding Keren. It's a new life, that's for sure! At the moment she's tucked in the crook of my elbow snoozing, giving me just the room I need to get to the keyboard. Good thing, too, or I'd never have written! I love to hold her when she's a little lump of soft snores, and even more when she's bright-eyed and checking out the world :) . It's hard to miss a moment!

Keren is four weeks old today--one month old this Sunday. Wow!!! It's been a great week, too--God has given us a lot to be thankful for. Keren's big achievement this week has been getting the hang of suck and swallow with a bottle. Since yesterday, she's done all of her daytime feedings with the bottle--and in good time, too. We had to put her feeding tube back in for the night, though, 'cause she was so out of it she couldn't wake up enough to think about food. We're going to talk to her doctor Tuesday about how we might change that night pattern so that we can wean her off the tube altogether. If she's able to go longer between feedings, she'll get hungry enough to wake up and take a bottle....plus Kraig and I will get a little more sleep! Not sure how this will work, but we're hoping! I'm still hoping, too, that she might get to the point where she'll breastfeed, which would help in many ways, too--hopefully increasing my milk output which has been very low the past two weeks.

We had two doctors appointments this week. On Wednesday, we met with a foot doctor who got Keren started on treatment for her club foot. At the moment she's sporting a little cast which will be changed weekly at that doctor's office for a while. Neat doctor--he's worked a lot with kids and club feet and was more than happy to bring out his skeletal foot model and explain exactly what makes a foot clubbed and how they fix it nowadays (Trivia: Did you know that it wasn't till the cat-scan in the early eighties that orthopedic doctors got most of their contemporary knowledge about anatomy? Even in the sixties med students were reading works of Renaissance authors about anatomy--there was not really much newer information!). Only problem with orthopedic work is it's so specialized; we'll have to go to a hand doctor to see what we'll be doing for Keren's contracted left hand. We're hoping it doesn't mean another cast--poor kid!

Thursday morning took us to the cardiologist at the Children's Hospital of Detroit. We headed out bright and early, minus the feeding tube that Keren had neatly pulled out that morning, and armed with a bottle "just in case we didn't get home before ten." It was a good thing we had it, too, and we were VERY thankful she had gotten the bottle technique down 'cause we didn't get home till 1 pm.! We would have had one extremely miserable baby, otherwise! Anyway, what a great experience!!! Met with another wonderful doctor (haven't had any bad ones) who laid out his philosophy right up front: "It doesn't matter what's wrong with a child or what the supposed 'quality of life' is; if something can be done to help him or her live a better life, do it!" Keren had another EKG (she'd had two in the NICU) and after going over that, Dr. T decided to do an ultrasound to double-check his findings. Amazing news!!! Keren's pda (that extra valve that babies have to bypass the lungs in utero) has closed off (as it should), and her enlarged ventricle muscles are now the normal size. Also, her bicusped valve is actually tricusped, but two of the flaps are fused. However, the valve is not leaking, it's not narrowed, and there's no over-acceleration of the blood--in other words, it's acting like a normal valve! Dr. T said that we don't have to come back for a check-up for six months! SO! Pretty much this means that Keren's heart, while technically not normal, is functioning about as normally as a heart can! This is very unusual for a trisomy 18 baby.

I think that's about it for our news, then--but what good news it is! We know Keren's time is still in God's hands, and she is still affected by the trisomy (our biggest concern right now is her getting a respiratory infection or apnea recurrence), but at the moment she's very healthy and growing well (5 lbs, 12 oz. yesterday).

Kraig and I are still functioning on little sleep which hasn't been terrible for me, but is wearing on Kraig. Please pray for him with all the work he has to keep up with at school! We're still getting a lot of help at home which has been great. My sister Jessie was just here for a week and Kraig's brother Kris makes frequent appearances to do odd jobs--not to mention all our friends from church who are continually helping. We've been extremely blessed!

Hope you haven't minded this lengthy email--we just wanted so much to share our news with you!

We'll keep you posted!

Love, Loren for Kraig and Keren, too