If you’ve been following our story over the past couple of weeks, you’ll know that we’ve been dealing with kind of a roller-coaster regarding her weight gain. It had come to the point last week that were resigning ourselves to the idea that her heart condition was making her progressively more tired and unable to feed well. As a result, we wouldn’t be seeing significant weight gain until after her surgery.

Interesting how things continue to change. In the last couple of days, we saw her come alive again and show much more interest in eating. It was still not where we needed to be according to what the specialists in the NICU were suggesting (120-140 kcal/kg-day – the math is convoluted, but you get the hang of it quickly), but certainly an encouragement.

We have promised ourselves that we would try not to let our spirits rise and fall over the number a scale was telling us about our daughter. But it’s really, really hard not to do that when your singular focus is feeding volume and weight gain. I guess it’s just human nature to want some kind of feedback on your kid’s progress and our reductionistic minds simply tend to boil it down to one or two metrics.

Despite those promises, Jocelyn got a number in her head last night as we prepared for bed and for this morning’s cardiologist’s consult. “We need to pray that she makes it to three pounds over her birth weight tomorrow.” I did the math and it seemed like a tall order, considering the paltry weight gain over the past couple of weeks. In fact, in the cold light of day, I could see no practical reason that our hopes could be fulfilled.

But before we fell asleep at the end of the day, we asked God for the four ounces anyway. I’ll not get into the theological conundrums of whether this whole thing is pre-scripted or whether God actually listens to our prayers and integrates them into the story. Suffice it to say, we dared to ask and Providence… provided. And with a whole half ounce to spare.

So we have two big milestones to celebrate today! Our Julia is three months old and is now a full three pounds over her birth weight! We also shared with Dr. Weinhouse the story of our Ebenezer stone and celebrated the reality that even now, God continues to help us.