Friday in the hospital (May 23)

By the end of today the hundreds of people praying for our baby has showed tangible results. He is off his ventilator, he has had his first bowel movement showing his intestines are online and ready to feed. He is squirmy and yawns, and hiccups and makes a cry face with his bottom lip sticking out. He does baby things that babies should do. Much of the equipment and lines are being cleared. They want me to be able to hold him as soon as possible. They want him to start feeding and nursing next week if he can. They want to do an MRI to look for physical brain damage, and we all hold our breath and pray for Wednesdays upcoming EEG. We want to see as much improvement as we can by then. We do not know how things will go from there. My heart begs for it's dream but my mind demands reality. My husband and I return home for the night for the first time. My older boys are with their bio dad and it feels eerie in my home. My brother comes over to keep us some upbeat company. It may have been a lil too upbeat. But my husband got to unwind, I got to catch up my blog for the most part and follow up some emails. I feel loved by my vast friends online from all over the united states...sending pages and pages of prayers for our family. Churches from Washington State to California have our son on the prayer list. Tough motorcycle riding men are bowing their heads in prayer. Online gaming friends have offered kind words for us, and I am certain some are praying in one form or another. And I am grateful. Because I see first hand the results. I ask everyone to continue to pray for this baby boy. We still have no assurance of what damage has already been done. We can only hope as baby Ollie recovers and makes his way to "his normal" that it is a level that will give him abundant life. We know today that he will not die. He will not be a total vegetable. He will eventually come home and be our baby. We share the happy news with the older kids over the phone. And Ryan gets to see Oliver without the tubes down his throat.

It's really 2am on Saturday morning as I finish this up. I confess it feels good to be in my own bed. It's still made up so I could have laid in it postpartum and not ruined the mattress. It crinkles when I roll over.

I hear my trains through the window, rumbling by. My four year old Ryan snores at my side. I checked up on Oliver tonight by phone with his nurse Kami. He pooped more-a huge accomplishment. His temp went down a tad, but she upped the warmer to compensate. His Carbon Dioxide is a little high from time to time as he is sleeping hard and breathes shallow when he sleeps hard. He held his breath (apnea) briefly at one point, then caught it again and blew off all that carbon dioxide. He's doing well. Sleeping. I guess I don't feel so guilty for sleeping too. I'm going to snuggle down in my bed for tonight, and be up in 6 hours to head back that way, other than waking up to pump twice in between.

See you at nine am Oliver...I miss you little love...