Daddy's Girl.

I might be biased but I think Dalley looks so beautiful in this picture. I think it's the fact that her eyes are open and she doesn't look as sick as she usually does in pictures.

Dalley had a few set backs today on her ventilator. She was having a hard time keeping her oxygen saturation levels up and after getting a chest x-ray completed, it was discovered that her lungs had collapsed. They had to amp up the settings on the ventilator to get her numbers back to where they need to be. Another bump in the road.

Today was the first day of our "new normal". Adam is living down in Springville because he started class again this afternoon. I am living in Salt Lake at the Ronald McDonald house. He will be coming up to see us on Friday and stay for the weekend.

I am already feeling his absence quite profoundly. I spent 20 minutes trying to find my car keys when I was leaving the hospital. I tore apart every bag I had with me and retraced my steps throughout the NICU 15 times before I remembered I had used the valet parking service.... and they had my keys.

Dalley and I miss our dad and husband. We knew today would be hard. Which is why yesterday, Adam was allowed to do "kangaroo care" or "skin to skin" with Dalley. I was still trying to decide if I had a cold or not, so I opted to let Adam hold her. It was honestly ALMOST as emotional and rewarding for me to watch him hold her as it was for me to hold her myself.

She is going to be switched over to a new ventilator in 2 days, and that ventilator has a short hose so we can't hold her when she is on it. I'm so happy that he got a chance to hold her before he left today and before she gets switched over.

It just about melts your heart to see crocodile tears running down your husbands face as he holds his baby for the first time.

I tried to capture the moment the best that I could. It takes so much work and several people to be able to move her out of her isolette and into our arms.

The respiratory therapist and the nurse have to work together to make sure the hoses aren't kinked and that they don't move at all in her airway.

I think it's safe to say that dad is wrapped around her tiny tiny fingers.

She did so well doing skin to skin with her dad. Her numbers were equally stable as they were when she was with me.

I can't wait to watch their relationship grow. There is something about a little girl's relationship with her dad. And I think this little girl has got the best dad around.

I catch him staring at pictures of her on his phone.

He sits and reads books to her.

And he leaves her mom reminder notes on the door because I'm a space case.. and he is abnormally organized. (Notice that 'keys' is on the list of things I habitually forget... :) )


I've cried a thousand tears today. I hate seeing my baby the way she is. I miss Adam. I miss my mom. Moments like this I really, really wish my mom were alive to come be with me.

This is our new normal.... for now. Not forever. But for now.

And we can do this.