Well, I thought I would give a quick update on how little Joshua is doing.  He continues to improve with his eating skills.  Right now, our goal is to have him eating 68cc (a little over 2 oz) of milk at each feeding (every 3-4 hours).  Currently, he is averaging about 35 cc by mouth, and then the rest has to take through his feeding tube.  The reason he is struggling so much is because he actually gets too tired to keep sucking.  The doctors say this is extremely normal for "heart babies." All we can do right now is continue to have him practice.

Today we also had a visit from the early intervention program, Kids Who Count.  This program is designed to help with early childhood education and make sure kids are reaching their milestones and that they will be ready to go to preschool by age three. The doctors at Primary Children's highly recommended us getting into this program to be sure Joshua is reaching his milestone, especially with his feedings.  We will be getting consistent visits from a Occupational Therapist, who will work with Joshua on his feedings and also work with his other skills, and a nurse, who will watch from the medical side. 

Finally, I thought it was time to have a few pictures on this blog!  Here is our journey over the last two weeks in pictures!!

Getting ready to deliver!  Instead of the planned induction on the 4th, I went into labor on Saturday the 1st!  After waking up with contractions that morning, little Joshua was born at 10:02pm.

We were not expecting to be able to hold him right away, but just an hour after he was born, the nurse in the NICU bent a few rules and let us hold him before he got moved over to Primary's.  It was a precious moment :)

All his little tubes, IV's, and EKG leads.

Dad holding him for the first time!

Even though Primary Children's is just next door and connected to University Hospital with a walkway, the Life Flight team was still called in to transport our little man over.  He had quite the ride over, don't you think?

This is one of my favorite pictures.  This was taken the first time I got to visit him in the Cardiac ICU over at Primary Children's.

Once we found out about our difficult decision of whether or not to proceed with surgery or not, we have been calling on our Heavenly Father a lot.  We decided to go to the temple on night and had our parents come with us.  It was a wonderful experience and seeing the lights on Temple Square was a nice little perk :)

We decided to bless little Joshua in the hospital since both sets of our parents were in town and we were not planning on taking him to church any time soon.  I didn't know the spirit could be so strong in such a small hospital room.  Tim did a wonderful job and gave a beautiful blessing.

The crowd who came to the blessing.

Heading home!  On Sunday, December 8, after a week and one day in the hospital, we got to go home!

It did not take long to settle into home life.  Logan has been an awesome older brother and LOVES holding his little brother!

He is also a big help when it comes to giving Joshua his bottle and helping clean out the feeding tube pump.  We LOVE being home!

Saturday 8 AM: Stephanie woke up and felt her first strong contraction.  With Logan, her water broke and they were able to get her an epideral before she felt serious contractions.  Such was not the case on Saturday.  I went to work at worked from 8-1:30 PM.  After getting off of work, I called Stephanie.  She said she was laying down, unable to move due to contractions.  They were occuring every 15 minutes or so.

After getting home, I started to pack the car and finish packing our bags.  We had plans to meet the siblings to go to festival of trees around 4:30.  4:30 came and we were still in Spanish Fork, not in Sandy--where the Festival of Trees was.  We finally started toward Salt Lake.  All the while, Stephanie still had contractions every so often.  Stephanie ended up calling University Hospital Labor and Delivery and asked questions on when she should come in.  She then tracked her contractions for the next hour.

Excited for the Festival of Trees, I convinced Stephanie to go in and see some trees.  After meeting up with family, it was about 2 minutes of viewing trees when we left the event and started our way to the hospital.  We arrived at 7:15 PM with Stephanie ready for that epidural.  7:45 we were admitted to the hospital and moved to a temporary delivery room.  Stephanie was dialated to a 4.  @7:18: Contraction; @7:21: Contraction; @7:26 Contraction...I think you get the picture.  I've never seen Stephanie in so much pain--it was hard to watch.  I wanted to take the pain upon myself when I saw it.  Unfortunately, I couldn't.  Luckily, the epidural was given @9:05.  At 9:45, she was measured again and she was complete.  Right about then, the nurses started to panic.  (In my mind, I thought we still had a few hours--boy was I wrong!)  We were then rushed into an Operating Room that was connected with the ICU.  Upon entering, I helped the doctors clear a spot for Stephanie's bed and a route to the window that led to the NICU.  At 10:02 PM, Joshua Kent Ipson was born.  Within 10 seconds, he was handed through the window and started to be stablized.  A kind nurse took our camera to capture a few photos for us.  I tried to look through the window, but Joshua was surrounded by 4-5 doctors, allowing me to only see a foot or hand here or there.

Soon, Stephanie was moved back into the 'temporary delivery room' where we were before the OR.  After about 15 minutes there, we were moved to a recovery room.  We then were able to visit Joshua in the NICU for a little bit, in which we also were able to hold him for the first time.  Absolutely a precious moment!  This was unexpected but absolutely amazing!  After 15 minutes, we were asked to leave as another baby was being brought in and they needed the area cleared.  We went back to Stephanie's room and waited for Life Flight to arrive.  Around 1 AM, Life Flight came with Joshua on their stretcher.  After a few pictures (can be seen on Facebook), I left with Life Flight to take him to Primary Children's Medical Center.  We walked over using the bridge that connects the two hospitals and arrived at the Cardiac ICU. 

Fifteen minutes later, (2:00 AM) one of the cardiologist started Joshua's first test: an echocardiogram.  I then went back to Stephanie's room at the University Hospital to get some rest.  We later found out the Echo took around 4.5 hours.  I thought it was only 2.5 hours, but apparently Joshua's heart condition was more complex and very unique.  Some of the diagnosis are as follows: 1) Dextracardia--Position of the heart is on the right side of the chest, not on the left side; 2) Heterotaxy--the heart is basically flipped.  He also has two right sides; 3) Main pulmonary atresia--the main pulmonary artery is not found.  The pulmonary artery is the main artery that carries blood from the heart to the lungs.  4) Hypoplasia of the right ventricle--underdeveloped right ventricle 5) Lungs appear to be supplied by arterial collaterals with no MPA segment noted--Lungs are getting blood, but they aren't sure where from.  They are suspecting arterial collaterals are delivering the blood.  6) Bi-lateral superior vena cavae without bridging vein 7) 3 Pulmonary veins drain into an upper vertical vein which dump into the right atrium--pulmonary veins are veins that take blood from the lungs to the heart.  Typically there are four and they should dump into the left atrium.

In addition to the 7 items mentioned above, there are a few other complications which we won't go into at this time, however, the 7 are the major issues we are looking at. 

Today, Joshua had an abdominal ultrasound in which they looked at his anatomy and specifically, if he had a spleen.  I asked the nurse this evening and she said she didn't think they found a spleen.  We have not heard the official results of the ultrasound, but from the sounds of it, he doesn't have a spleen--which is the immune system for infants.

Stephanie has officially been discharged from the University Hospital and she seems to be recovering really well.

Tomorrow morning at 9:30, he has a Cardiac CATH test scheduled.  This is where they will put a tube with a camera into a vessel in his leg.  From there, they go up the vessel to the heart and then release a dye.  They measure the pressure in the veins and watch the blood flow.  This will give them the missing puzzle piece they are looking for--How the lungs are receiving blood.  (Since the MPA [main pulmonary artery] is missing, and his oxidation % is staying around the 90's, they are slightly puzzled how the blood is getting there)  After this test, they will then meet together on Wednesday morning.  (They being ANYONE that is SOMEBODY--aka All cardiologists, all surgeons, all etc)  They will come up with their game plan on how to proceed and when the first surgery will occur.  We pray for the best and that the doctors will be led to the best decision for our little guy. 

We appreciate all the prayers, messages, and love you have all shared with us.  We have felt power from on high and know that the Lord is watching over us and our little Joshua.