Since yesterday was Judah’s 3 week birthday, that means that today is our 3 week anniversary in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. As you all will remember, after spending just one night with mommy and daddy after being born, the next day little baby J was rushed over to Children’s Hospital after a nurse noticed a heart murmur, which led us to learn of the congenital heart defect our little boy had. In the last 3 weeks, doctors have been able to perform an open heart surgery on a baby of just 10 days old to repair his heart. And here we are, after just another week and a half, with a baby who is finally back to stable, and is actually getting better every day. Though we still have a long road ahead, not only getting out of the ICU or out of the hospital and home for the first time, but the years to come and several more surgeries on the horizon. However, for now we will take every victory we get, and cherish what we have.
Today two tubes that were in his chest were removed. These were drainage tubes for use after the surgery, to help him drain any excess fluids that might have collected inside of him. the drainage has been slowing and slowing over the last week, and finally today the doctors were ready to take them out. This left little baby J the closest to being untethered as he has been since before the surgery. They also removed an Arterial IV line from his arm, and now he is left with just the old PICC line and one last IV going into it, which may be stopping its drip this evening. The doctors have been changing all of his medicines from IV drugs, to lower dose Oral medicines, as they continue to wean him off almost all of the drugs he has been on.
Otherwise, a boring night in the CICU is the best kind of night. Nothing too crazy going on, just hanging out, recovering, and being cute. No spikes in heart rate, little bear is drinking more of his breast milk, and day by day we keep stepping forward towards recovery. Mommy and Daddy are trying to get as much rest as they can now, because once he gets out of the CICU and eventually home, they will no longer have time to rest, as baby J will not have nurses hovering over him every minute. well, he probably will, but they will just be pinching his face and saying how cute he is.
We continue to pray for Baby J, and for all of you. Seeing such recovery in him truly gives us the strength to continue, and to know that within a few more weeks, we expect to finally have our beautiful baby boy at home, and can breath the first sigh of relief.