A Pick Me Up

How many days in a row I can have the best day of my life?  Not sure, but I am enjoying this run.  Today, I got to watch Marni hold each of her children for the first time.  I don't think anything has ever made me happier.  I hover around and snap pictures (and video that I will eventually figure out how to post) like a proud father.

Lucas is in the first picture below; he actually was able to leave the incubator and sit in a rocking chair with mom.  Olivia is in the next picture.  She still has to prove herself a bit more before they will let her out, but mom was able to cradle her inside the incubator.

Of course, sometimes when I'm out in the world away from the NICU, for a brief moment, the enormity of all this flashes by me:  my little children lying in their beds over at Georgetown, facing their challenge of the day.  For Lucas, he is trying to prove himself with his breathing.  He breathes with the help of a cpap, which is a tube that basically applies pressure to his nose and helps him breathe for himself.  He had regressed two days ago and had to have his pressure increased.  But he averted being intebated (which is a tube straight into the lungs that breathes for the baby because he is not being successful breathing for himself), and he has now made it the last two days returning to breathing on the cpap and doing so without working too hard.

Olivia's challenge is now her heart.  She is intebated, but the doctors believe she will be better at breathing after she takes care of her heart.  All babies in utero have a pda valve that separates the two chambers of the heart.  When the baby is born, the pda valve automatically closes; however, in preemies sometimes it doesn't.  The treatment is ibuprofen (wonder who figured that out and if it was an accident).  Olivia got her last dose today of a course of ibuprofen.  She will get an eco-cardiogram tomorrow, and we should know by mid-day if the ibuprofen was successful and the pda valve closed.  If it doesn't, it sounds like they will give her a break and then try another round of ibuprofen.  The doctors are hopeful that at a minimum the pda valve is getting closer to closing.  So are we.  We all think that everyone's prayers and the prayers Lucas and Olivia have learned to say for themselves can make all things possible.   

A friend asked me a couple days ago how we walk through all this.  My answer is simple.  One day at a time.  We try not to focus on what could have been, what could be, what happened, or what tomorrow will look like.  Instead, we focus on the challenge and the blessing of the day.  For today, it was all about the joy of mom holding her kids and dad hovering with the camera.