Lights, Camera, Action!

"They're baaaaccckkkk"

After many trips to the mailbox and day after day of wonder, we finally have a power cord for our computer! I felt like Ralphie Parker checking the box for his Little Orphan Annie Decoder ring..............EVERY time I went to check for this stupid thing.

It is finally here, and it works.............horribly. Thank you Dell corporation for making computers which have no replacement components that fit. Seems like a real savvy business strategy to me.

At any rate, we are up and running temporarily and I have photos of the little man.

Away we goooooooooooooo

This is just after we arrived a while back and found the roof blown off the incubator. This was the first step to his getting into a "big boy" crib. That photo is next.

Unfortunately, the "big boy" crib resembles a jail cell from Shawshank or something.

So then he breast fed............no photos for that ha ha.

That brings us up to speed with some photo reference. There is a very funny thing he does where he wedges his hands under the nasal prongs or the feeding tube and basically tries to rip them out. It is almost like he is in there shouting "AWAY WITH THESE INFERNAL THINGS"

A couple days ago, he was throwing his first "real" fit complete with crying and wailing, and his first tears! During this tirade, he got a hold of the feeding tube and straight up yanked it out! It reminded me of an incident that my Mom and I had one day and to her I just want to say.............I thought it would affect you but it affected me more. I was reminded him how important that feeding tube was and that just cause he breast fed like a star right out of the gate, he can't just go ripping out his food supply or anything. He complied.......against his wishes.

Yesterday, we found him bare faced.............no more nasal prongs! The doctors have decided to give him a go with absolutely no assistance breathing. So far so good on that front, and we are praying that continues.

He has 4 "checkpoints" that he has to pass in order to come home with us:

1) He has to hold and control his own body temperature-CHECK
2) He has to be able to sleep on his back-CHECK (since he went into the crib he has to sleep on his back only)
3) He has to be able to feed properly and not have issue feeding and breathing and processing food-CHECK (so far)
4) He has to be "incident" free in terms of his breathing for a week-WORKING ON IT

So..........we are getting closer...........much closer.

I asked the nursing staff how long the longest child has been in the NICU and was told "yearS" Yes, that is a capital S for years of time.

Hearing that makes our 74 days seem like nothing. To us, though, that time has seemed like horribly long. We have watched families come and go and we feel like we are the grandparents of the hospital. I have seen families walk in with the same look I had my first day.

Pale, scared, confused looks have been common. We are trying to be strong and show people that success stories are happening in the NICU and that, while it may seem like the sky is falling, there is support and we can all make it with God's blessing and positive support for both the children and the families.

On that note, please put Kelia in your prayers. Long story short, she has an infection and was born smaller than our little man............she, and he parents are in need of some divine counsel and all the prayers they can get will be helpful.

We can't begin to describe how strange this experience has been, and we seem to have gone through this process with the minimum of night phone calls from doctors............they are not so fortunate thus far. God help rest their souls and protect that baby!

So....................

That is about that. I hope that updates fairly well. We will have more frequent updates in the future and thank you all for your patience and understanding on these computer troubles.

More importantly, thank you all for the support and well wishes. It is a support group like we have that keeps things like this from breaking us down. God bless you all!

A couple cute photos to close the night;

Our little man! Love you buddy!