All,
Michelle does not have access to the blog anymore. I will be posting her update emails.
Shane
“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
Friends and family,
Noah joined us in Fresno Monday night. This past Sunday, in nothing short of a small miracle, he was doing so well that they switched him to a regular ventilator. His oxygen requirements continued to be so good that by Monday morning I was on the phone with the Bakersfield physician begging him to get Noah here should they determine his PDA valve was still open. His echogram showed that indeed the valve had started to reopen and after a second dose of medication had not closed. So the team was sent out to pick him up that afternoon. I was so thrilled at knowing both of my sons would be close, not thrilled at the thought of Noah having to undergo surgery but thrilled to not be separated from him any longer.
Noah didn’t tolerate the flight well, in fact once he landed a team of nurses, physicians and respiratory therapists rushed to get him up and breathing on his own again. It was frightening as a parent to see him looking so pale and fragile but I had faith they would help him stabilize. That night within maybe 45 minutes of me leaving the hospital to eat dinner I received a phone call from Noah’s doctor, I remember thinking to myself, “please do not tell me you couldn’t get him resuscitated….” Thank goodness the call was merely to say that they had to get him into surgery that night because his oxygen requirements were too great and they didn’t want to switch him back to the high frequency oscillator and loose the opportunity to close that valve.
So we rushed back over to the hospital to send him into surgery and since his oxygen, while still high, is so much improved that we know (as well as the surgeons and physicians) that he really needed this surgery.
It has been an exhausting week so far. From fighting to get Noah here (which included being an intermediary between doctors trying to get them to communicate from Bakersfield to Fresno, not by choice but by the lack of motivation from our Bakersfield doctor) to dealing with nurses that I am not very fond of to watching my two boys really struggling. Yesterday was the boys first month birthday, has it really only been a month? It feels like an eternity to me.
Noah has been doing fairly well since his surgery but our sweet Jonah has had a really bad week. He has been swinging constantly on his oxygen settings and really fighting everything, he is so unhappy some days and I have to remind myself over and over that he is going to pull through and that he will make it. At one point yesterday I just kept saying to myself, “I am not giving up on this little boy and therefore he cannot give up on me.” We really have had some scares in the past three days with our little Jonah. He has so much more to recover from and he is fighting to heal from three different surgeries, with at least one or two to come.
Both boys started feedings again today, Jonah 1.5 ML every three hours and Noah 1.5 ML every three hours. Noah is up to 2 pounds 11 ounces! I can hardly believe it and he has filled out so much. I remember looking at him Monday night and I couldn’t believe that in nearly two weeks he had grown and changed so much. He is so much bigger then Jonah but that is to be expected as Jonah by far has the greater challenges to overcome.
Right now the two boys are next door to each other but still not in the same room. I can’t wait until this happens as it will make our visits so much easier.
Shane returned to work last Thursday and has been actually working from home until next Monday. He will be coming down tomorrow and I am looking forward to his visit as it is so hard to go through this without him. I am grateful my father is with me and it is good to have the priesthood as he has given Jonah two blessings already this week and Noah one before he went into surgery.
It feels like such a long road as we have until at least the end of January before heading home (very likely it could be February or later). I wish they could go home together but that seems to be a rarity when it comes to twins.
Some days I have a hard time envisioning them big enough where they can feed and lay out in an open bed, I’ve become so adjusted to their enclosed incubators and not being able to touch them that it is hard to believe they will actually be able to do normal baby things in the next couple of months.
My days are good and bad. My moments are very much the same. I find great courage at times and sometimes I feel so hopeless, I think the hardest times are when I see one of my boys in a lot of pain being so tiny and fragile, it is unbearable. Thank goodness for prayer and family, I wouldn’t make it without either of them. I’m still struggling to understand why our family, why us? Why were we chosen? I’ve listened to another mother here whose twin boys were born at 27 weeks and she always tells me how strong I am, how she couldn’t do this and I always think that you just never know what God will call you to do. I have said this myself before to others going through trials but now I realize how unwise it almost seems to say such a thing, you just never know what God will call you to do and when he does you’ll have to find the courage to work through it. I didn’t ask for this to happen to my sweet boys and I think in dealing with it I’ve gained a testimony that it is not a matter of strength but a matter of capacity and what you don’t possess the Lord will provide.
I have run into several members of the church, three nurses here are members and they all have taken the time to talk to us. In fact, one is the daughter of a couple who lives in our Bakersfield ward and I worked with her younger sister in the Young Women’s program. I am always grateful to find members of the church away from home.
Thank you all again for your continued prayers and concern. We appreciate your love and support and our boys are growing and thriving because of your faith. Please don’t forget us as the road we have to travel is a long one and there is a long way yet to go.
Love, Shane and Michelle
No comments:
Post a Comment