Happy 1 week Birthday Ezra!

Our sweet Ezra is 1 week old today. It's so crazy how much your life can change in a week and weird to think that tomorrow Nicole was suppose to be getting admitted to the hospital for steroids. We went to celebrate with him this afternoon.  He is making very small baby steps on the ventilator which we continue to rejoice about.  Even though it is hard to be patient we are grateful for any step forward no matter how big or small. They adjusted the dialysis treatment again to try and help filter better and get more fluid off to decrease some of his lab values to make them more in the normal range. So far the catheter continues to work well. Since he has needed so many lab draws he needed a unit of blood as well. They are much more hesitant to give him blood knowing that if he makes it through this he will need a kidney transplant so  they don't want him to have a lot of antibodies in his blood from transfusions.  For this reason they will try to use the same blood donor for the course of his hospital stay. We're hoping that the blood will also help optimize oxygenation as well.

Thank you all who have helped us get through this very hard yet beautiful first week of Ezra's life outside the womb. We feel incredibly fortunate to have such a strong support network from our parents, siblings and their families, extended families, friends, and people we have never met all across the country.  We keep telling Ezra to continue to fight and we'll continue to pray for a miracle but most of all for God's will for his life to be done.

With love,
Jeff & Nicole