[this text was originally posted on carepages.com; it is being put here so it will exist somewhere besides my laptop, and Juliet can read it when she gets older]

Hello,

Kind of a rough day yesterday. Juliet has lost weight, and now weighs 1.5 pounds. One of the nurses, wanting us to be prepared for what is likely to come, said that it is typical for a baby born this prematurely to get an infection at some point.

Also, when we brought up the topic of wondering how long it would be before she would likely be able to transfer to Austin, she said that such things have been done. But, she also said that there is a wide variation in how long it takes before a premature baby can leave the hospital. In a few cases, they have celebrated their first birthday still in the NICU. Yikes.

Sometimes, when Cassandra is feeling depressed, I read something to her to take her mind off the current situation. Unfortunately, our tastes in reading material differ somewhat. A couple nights ago I had to choose between "In the Beginning: A History of the Hebrew Language", and "Ancestor's Tale", which is a book on evolution. I figured she would not go for linguistics, so I tried reading "Ancestor's Tale".

It's a book by Richard Dawkins, who is a great writer, but it isn't really made for bedtime reading. I was told to skip the Preface, then was told to skip the Introductory chapter, then was told to skip ahead to the interesting parts. But it must have done the trick, because she did fall asleep soon thereafter.

Yesterday, we got to do a little shopping, and both got some new stuff to read. I got a book on string theory, and she got a miscellany called "How Do Flies Walk Upside Down". It was a tough choice, but she decided on the miscellany for last night's reading.

I might have misspelled "miscellany", in which case my co-workers will have finally caught me in a misspelling.

Hopefully, we will hear something today about whether Juliet will require surgery to close her shunt. We'll see.

Thanks to everyone for all the messages and good thoughts.

ross

[this text was originally posted on carepages.com; it is being put here so it will exist somewhere besides my laptop, and Juliet can read it when she gets older]

Wow, huge amounts of posts. Thanks for all the contact info from everyone, hello to everyone we haven't heard from in a while like Wendy Stephenson, hello to those we haven't met yet like Liz, and yes, Gary, we can see the Arch! Other than that, just 'cause we don't respond to your post in person doesn't mean we didn't read it, and appreciate it!