Update from 29 February

Friends and family,

I wanted to quickly update everyone before the weekend. Jonah had his 7th surgery yesterday. It was a three hour surgery to repair his ileostomy and put his intestines back together. He will be in recovery for the next week and is intubated and heavily medicated right now. The surgery went well, there was a lot of scar tissue (as would be expected from him already having two surgeries in the abdomen prior to yesterday) but everything went well from what the surgeon told us.

Noah is still off the ventilator and doing well. Today they decided to see how he will do on the low flow, the oxygen system he will go home on. If he does well and consistently does better with his bottle feeding then he could be going home in the next week or two. He didn't do well yesterday with his bottle feeding but he suffers from colic and was very upset yesterday. We also think he may have been affected by knowing what was going on with his brother. The rumor in this NICU is that twins now exactly what each is going through and it affects how well or poorly each can do. I do believe it can be true because of course these two boys knew each other before this earthly experience and their souls are very much connected.

The difficult part of this news is that one of the boys will be left behind. They are predicting at the hospital here that the boys will, as usually happens with twins, be discharged at different dates. We can only hope that the other will be discharged within a week or two of the other. It is a good thing we have willing family that will come down and stay with the boy left behind in the hospital while I go home with whoever is sent first.

I am so thrilled that we are looking at them going home soon. It will be wonderful to end this experience and take them both home where they belong.

Keep praying for both boys as this experience can change dramatically from hour to hour, day to day.

We thank you for your continued love and support.

Shane and Michelle