Today was an enlightening day for Jason and I.  The ECHO that was performed yesterday showed that ZOe still has a large amount of pulminary hypertension.  This is kind of what we have been dreading, it's been sort of looming in the distance for a while.  It's one of those things that if it doesn't correct itself can cause cardiac failure later because of all the pressure put on the heart.  The doctors don't think this will be the case at all with Zoe, it's just that her lungs still need more time to grow and mend themselves.  So it's a definite now that she will be going home on oxygen and probably be on it for several months, probably around 6 months or so.  At first I was really upset about this only because we thought she was doing so much better with her hypertension.  Once we had time to sit and think about it, it all made sense.  Zoe's surgery was only a month ago, so her lungs have only been being used for 30 days and they weren't very healthy lungs to begin with. To expect them to be all healed in a month is kind of ridiculous.  The hypertension should go away once her lungs get stronger and the veins open up and relax a bit more.  The up side about all this is that we get a monitor on her at home.  This will make life alot more relaxed for Jason and I just to know that she is getting the amount of oxygen she needs at  all times.  The doctor drew a sort of graph of where Zoe started on her oxygen needs and where she is now.  Basically it is like she started at the top of a giant mountain and has made her way down fairly quickly but now has the long flat trail to hike out to get home. 

Zoe had an amazing day in terms of feedings today.  She breast fed for 60 minutes at 5:00 in the evening.  She probaly only got 35-40 ml but she didn't tire out all which was really encouraging and she seemed to love it and not have any aversion.  She also did several bottle feedings today.  Zoe also got another bath today which this time she loved.  It's getting easier each time with a few less cords and tubes.

So the new plan of attack for getting Zoe out of here is to ween her oxygen flow as much as possible while keeping her on 100% oxygen since that is what the tank at home will have and to concentrate on her feedings. We are still hoping we can get her to take her feedings herself and not need a G-tube, but we'll see what happens.  Either way, we are so proud of her and how far she's gotten in just 2 months.