Tuesday was a special day

Today's progress can be illustrated with one photo.










Are you ready? Are you sure?? I had tears again....

We got to hold Charlie today!!!!!!!

God is obviously hearing all our prayers for this little angel. What a day he had on Tuesday. He started the day inubated on the jet ventilator and with lines still in his belly button, and he ended the day with just a nose cannula delivering oxygen, his feeding tube and the IV in his arm. It was a remarkable day for our little man.

Jason and I actually missed the first half of the day due to work for Jason and an appointment I had for Carter. Papa had to work today too, and Coco and I had decided she would come up when I got there at lunch, so Aunt Becky was our surrogate for the morning. For those of you who don't know Becky, she is married to my cousin Greg, she and Greg are responsible for getting Jason and I together 14 years ago, she was my "best chick" at our wedding, she cleaned up our house on Sunday and finished the laundry...you get the drift on why she was there all morning.

I asked Becky for her account of the day, and here's what she said:
"When I started my morning shift with Charlie, I was so pleased to report to his mom that everything was status quo through the night, and he was doing great. When I say he was doing great I mean he was sleeping peacefully as any newborn only stirring long enough to stretch, squirm and yawn even with the tubes going into his mouth. His color looked so good and his swelling was gone. (Note from Jill -- he now weighs ONLY 8.10 pounds, so he's shed all the fluid weight he gained...if only weight loss was this easy for us mommies!!)

His feet were no longer these balloons about to pop but I could identify them as not only feet but as feet that look like all the Lain boys’ feet and toes. You give my any baby and I could find a Lain boy by his feet and toes (Note from Jill -- they are Jason's feet and toes, not mine, and yes, I'm DYING to get some lotion on them:-). It was good to see them so clearly now. Little did I know that this day was about to get exciting.

The doctor requested a blood oxygen level at 10 a.m., and the results were excellent . So with a push of a button and a move of some knobs, Charlie was off the jet vent and on the “regular vent”. I was so pleased to text Jill of the progress and couldn’t wait to see her face when she saw how good he was doing. He continued to lay peacefully unaffected by any changes being made. Did I mention he had not had any pain medicine since midnight and it was 10 a.m. What a trooper! I watched with anticipation because I knew that in one hour if the blood gases were still good then they were going to move forward some more.

One hour later they checked his gases again and again they came back good so next thing I know is knobs are being moved again to change the pressure of the vent. Not only did they change the pressure, but the two tubes in his belly button were taken out. He was progressing right before my eyes and didn’t seem to mind it but welcome it as if saying "I’m ready…let’s do this".

Okay, back to my account of the day now as Becky had to leave since he can only have two visitors at once, and Coco had joined Becky around 11 a.m. At 2 p.m., his nurse pulled another blood gas, and it was fantastic again. His doc was at lunch, so we decided to grab lunch too just in case she did want to extubate him. As we were finishing up, his nurse called me and said we could return in 30 minutes to a baby with no breathing tube!! I think the following photos will tell the story.

What a time we had just looking at Charlie. (Papa was able to cut work short to join us for the party.) I can't even describe how beautiful our Charlie is without the tube and all the tape. He is truly a precious gift from God, and Jason and I are honored to be his parents.

This photo shows how we left him at 9:30 p.m. -- sleeping peacefully in his bed. Good night angel and sweet dreams. I can't wait to see you again in the morning.