Ups and Downs

I think that I’ve experienced every emotion imaginable today. It ranged from sorrow to joy, guilt to anger. Thankfully, today, just like all the days before, I left Elijah’s bedside in a really upbeat and positive mood. He is such a strong boy and I’m so proud of him. I find myself asking why this had to happen and why us. But, then I tell myself why should it happen to anyone? Of course it shouldn’t. Life certainly isn’t fair and I’m not just learning that now. This isn’t exactly how I expected to spend my first few weeks as a mother. I feel robbed a bit because I thought that I would be home right now with him soaking it all in. I love our little man and so does Andy (and I know a whole lot of other people do too!). He is such an inspiration. It’s just that he’s been through so much in his short life already and all we want to do is protect him.

Well, we got the MRI results today and the news wasn’t what we had hoped. The neonatologist said that the back part of his brain is damaged on both sides and that his whole brain was affected to some extent. The neonatologist and the radiologist thought that the damage was moderate and Dr. Gloom told us it was more severe. Just goes to show that the results are pretty subjective. As you can imagine, this news was not easy to hear and it put Andy and I in quite a negative state for awhile. The truth is, we really have no idea what this means and neither do the doctors. They said it could mean that he’ll have problems with his coordination and learning disabilities or cerebral palsy. We shed our tears as we considered the worst case scenario and asked ourselves “what if…” It wasn’t a fun time to put it mildly. We’ve stopped trying to guess what will be wrong and focus on what is going on right in front of us…which is a beautiful little boy making incredible progress. I know that God has already intervened for Elijah and will continue to do so. After all He loves Elijah more than Andy and I ever could.
Elijah opened his eyes for us right away when we got there this morning which was a great way to start the day. We kept telling him all day “open your eyes buddy.” Poor guy probably didn’t get any rest we bug him so much. It’s so comforting to see him move and open his eyes that we keep pestering him. He doesn’t really seem to mind all that much really. He opened his eyes several times for us today. Just like any other baby, he seems to go through sleeping and awake times. We love seeing those eyes and can’t wait to see them even more tomorrow.

Great news today: Elijah is off of his respirator and is doing really well. His oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are good, so he is breathing well without it. Before they took it out, he was pulling at it and really seemed to want it out. He’s a bit raspy from having the tube down his throat almost since birth, but he is swallowing well and dealing with his secretions well (there is a concern with brain damage that he would choke on his tongue or not be able to rid himself of secretions- which isn’t the case at all). In fact, he is making fantastic sucking motions and sucked on our fingers quite vigorously. He also turned to Lisa like he wanted to nurse. These are all great signs. The doctor said we could try nursing tomorrow and I’m so excited. Every day he makes incredible progress. Also, both Andy and I got to hold Elijah today twice. He is much less connected to the machinery and so that makes it a lot easier. I’m sure that now we’ll be able to hold him a lot more So, it’s been a day of ups and downs, but we still leave the day with a positive attitude. Elijah has brought us so much joy in our lives already and I’m starting to forget what our life was like without him. Pray that he takes to breastfeeding well. Pray for a complete recovery. Pray that he’ll have the same chance in life that everyone else does. God has certainly been listening to you all and I have faith that Elijah will continue to improve. The test looks bad, but the boy in front of us sure looks good. That means so much more to me than a test. And, I know that anything is possible with God’s intervention. One way or another little Elijah will be okay. I know that.

Also, I wanted to mention that we created a Photobucket account. The CaringBridge site only allows 12 pictures, so we’ve been uploading more photos and even some videos to the Photobucket site. You can find a link to it under Links on the top tool bar. Keep praying!

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