Update (10:10pm, Wednesday)

First, thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement the past few days. To see well over 800 people leave a comment saying that they're thinking of us today is incredibly encouraging, and we deeply appreciate it (plus, that sets a new CFHusband record for number of comments under one post!)!

Gwyneth is doing well...up to 6lbs 3.5oz as of yesterday afternoon! Her O2 saturation and heart rate are good, but not great. Basically, her body is growing faster than her lungs, making them work a little too hard, as they are still underdeveloped. She is now on an incredibly small amount (so small, that I can't feel or hear it come out of the tank) of O2 (via a nasal cannula) for most of the day/night, just to give her lungs a little less to do on their own. She's also back on a med that she was taken off of a few weeks ago that should help as well. We've already noticed a visible difference since yesterday afternoon, which is good.

The docs say she looks great. It's important for her lungs to continue to develop, and for her to get this extra help from the O2 and meds because, if she's expending less energy breathing, she's using more energy eating and growing.

Tricia had her PET Scan this afternoon. Nothing too scary about it except for being told to clear your mind for a few hours while lying awake in a very small space... The results of the scan should show any tumors that might be forming in her body. I believe we'll hear about the results tomorrow.

She'll have a bronchoscopy and, hopefully, a successful biopsy of her lungs. If the biopsy is not successful, they will have to do a surgical biopsy, which means cutting her open, which she would is very apprehensive about (so, please, pray that the bronch biopsy is successful). I believe that we should have a fairly comprehensive diagnosis once the results of the scan, bronch and biopsy are all in, which may not be until Friday.

She was admitted early this evening, and is already sleeping in her hospital bed. She's bummed because she expected to be on her normal inpatient floor (which feels like home to us, and where they know her and her needs better), but there were no empty beds, so she's on am unfamiliar floor. I'm spending this first night with her, while Agnes (Tricia's mom) is with Gwyneth back at the hotel. You can pray that we all sleep well tonight and that Tricia will be moved to her favorite floor.

Tricia feels great, and, if the doctors weren't telling us that something was wrong, we would have no idea. Although she has EBV (mono), it's not the same as if you or I were to have what we know as mono. She has yet to be given an IV or anything else that she wouldn't have at home, and we haven't really been told what will happen over the next few days if she is diagnosed with something, which basically means that we're really not sure why Tricia isn't sleeping in her own bed tonight...at least, a little frustrating.

As I walked through the hospital lobby earlier this evening and entered the elevator, I thought to myself, for a brief second, that I should stop by the NICU on the way up to Tricia's room to see Gwyneth. Just a few minutes later, as I entered Tricia's room, I almost stopped myself because I didn't feel the gown on my back and gloves on my hands. And just now, as the nurse walked out of the room, I noticed how skinny Tricia's charts were (compared to the encyclopedia she ended up with by the end of her last stay). I can distinctly remember that last time I used the label "hospital" for one of my posts, thinking that it would be a long time before I added another post to that label... All that to say, it feels very strange being here now, especially considering how far Tricia and Gwyneth are removed, medically, from their last times as patients here.

We are praying with you that our stay will be short because the diagnosis will come back negative for anything major. We're also praying that God will show us why we are here this time...the last stay, while incredibly long and exhausting, still felt natural for us in a lot of ways. This visit simply does not.

In the meantime, we'll be patient and continue to know that we're exactly where God wants us, even if it makes no sense right now. Thanks again for your prayers, and thanks for your continued prayers over the next few days as we wait to hear the news.

Nate