{NICU: Day 13}

Today’s big news:

NO MORE PICC LINE!!

Josiah has had a PICC line since day 3. This is a type of IV that goes in his arm and all the way up into his chest to where his veins are a little bigger. He was receiving TPN through his PICC line which is a form of intravenous nutrition. He was receiving fats, proteins, and sugars as well as vitamins and minerals through this IV. When Joey was born, because my placenta and his cord had separated, he was not receiving oxygen and other support from me just before he was born. When this happens the baby’s body goes into super survival mode and routes all blood and oxygen to vital organs like the brain and heart. This means things like his stomach and whole gastrointestinal system basically are completely shut down. He was not ready to have any sort of food, so he had to get his nutrition intravenously. As he has been starting to eat milk, they have been weaning him off the TPN. Yesterday they took him off the lipids (fats) and today the PICC line is gone! This means his system is woken back up and he’s processing the milk well. He is almost up to his full feed – was at 32ml tonight and will go up to the full 33ml tomorrow morning. They are adding a fortifier to his milk now, but at least he’s getting all his nutrition from the milk! And he is so much more comfortable without the board strapped to his arm!

He is also up to 4lb 2oz (1860 grams).

His nasal cannula has been turned down to just a .5 liter flow (he started at 2 liter). He’s starting to pull it out all the time and that’s what he did with the ventilator tube and cpap just before he came off those, so I’m hopeful he’s close to being done with the cannula too!

We got to watch him get a little sponge bath tonight! He was SO mad.

His chest x-ray yesterday showed his lungs are continuing to improve. This is a good thing! They still saw some “bright spots” on his brain during his head ultrasound, but still aren’t too concerned. They’re going to follow up with another scan next Monday. She told us tonight it may be one of those things that only time will tell if there’s been any damage. His doesn’t appear crazy far out of normal where they’d make a diagnosis at this point, but they want to watch it and keep an eye on him as he continues to develop.

He’s close to being ready to come out of his isolette! He’s not requiring much warmth, and doesn’t need the humidity anymore. They told us to bring in some clothes for him – fun!

I think that’s all that’s new for now. I want to thank you all again for the amazing support and prayers and everything else. It’s times like this you just sit back and take it all in… We’ve got amazing people in our lives. Thank you all.

He is Risen, Indeed

(So I did start writing this on Easter, and just had the time to finish. Life of a mom, I guess!)

When we first moved to Kansas City, a huge concern for us was finding a church home. We were SO connected at Eagle Brook Church back in Minnesota, and that was a very hard piece of life to leave. We tried many different churches, but nothing fit us. Then a guy from Andy’s work invited us to Heartland Community Church. It’s about 45 minutes from our house, but since our first visit in January 2012, we haven’t looked back. We walked in and knew it was home. And there have been so many confirmations of that “home” feeling over the last year that we couldn’t imagine going anywhere else. Sure, we are not as connected as we’d like to be because distance makes that tricky, but we know our Heartland story is just beginning.

Last summer, we arrived pretty early for service one weekend and were sitting in the nearly empty worship center. Pastor Dan Deeble was in there too, and came over to say hi to us. We got to share with him a small snippet of our story coming from MN to Kansas City and how we came to Heartland. The fact that he took time right before he had to get up and speak to come and get to know us meant more than he’ll ever know. Over the next few months we saw him other times, and every single time he remembered us. He’d say “hey, you guys are the ones who drive from up by Worlds of Fun!” 🙂 He’s remembered every piece of our story we’ve shared with him all along the way. Just a couple months ago we shared with him that Andy had been offered a new job and we were trying to figure out what to do with all that, and two weeks later he stopped us in the hall just before service to ask what we had decided about the job. Once again, a time when he had a million other things on his mind, he stopped to remember us. This is home.

I was as good as dead. That was the title of today’s Easter message. This struck quite the cord with me since just 11 days ago I was quite literally as good as dead. What a staggering and humbling thought.

The empty grave matters. The power that comes from an empty grave matters in my life, and I got to see it firsthand this last week. The same God that raised His son to life after three days has the power to save me and my son when we shouldn’t have been saved. The same God that died on that cross to save me spiritually chooses to continue saving me. And that matters.

I’m humbled today to be here, with a (all things considered) healthy son. The doctors working on us both on the night of his birth are no doubt amazing people, and science and technology are amazing things, but none of that saved me. The One who has saved is saving me still.