More Baby Steps

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me. Psalm 23:4 Day of Life: 25 Whenever Barry and Canon come to town, I have to be a little more strategic about planning my day. Especially this weekend, when Barry and I pretty much have Canon all to ourselves, we have to make our plans in 1 to 2 hour increments so that Canon doesn't get too restless in one place. We started by going to the hospital while Canon was still on good morning behavior. I visited with Tera while Barry kept Canon occupied in the Family Room. During a 4:00 a.m. call to the night nurse, I learned that Tera had a massive dirty diaper, "one of the biggest I've ever seen" were her exact words. After that, Tera's oxygen level was slowly able to come down to about 38%. It's amazing how little things like that make such a big difference. At the hospital this morning, we discovered that Tera had gained another ounce. She weighs 1154 grams, which is 2 pounds 9 ounces. Her feeds have slowly been going up, and she is now taking 20cc every three hours. Her oxygen had gone down to 36% during the morning but was now back at 39%. Our nurse today told me that the doctors had given her some new orders for that day. First, Tera had already gotten another dose of diuretics. Second, they have adjusted her sleep apnea medicine because of her new weight gain. They increased her dosage from 4 mg to 4.5 mg every 12 hours. Eventually, she will begin getting this dosage more often during the day. And third, Tera will get a blood transfusion (didn't I mention that she might need that a couple of days ago?) today. All of this is done in an effort to get her oxygen needs back down so that we can work on getting her into a crib. It could still take awhile, but they are small steps in the right direction. While I know that there should be nothing to worry about, I worry that these small things just might culminate into something big and bad and unexpected. Though I walk through the valley . . . When I take my daily picture, I've noticed that I have to hold my camera further away from her bed in order to get her whole body in the shot. That's the reason for all the glares off the glass. Usually I try to avoid these glares, but right now, I'm ecstatic that they're there! Something else I've noticed is that because I see Tera everyday, it's sometimes hard to tell exactly how much she has grown. In the last couple of days, though, I have noticed that her fingers and toes are filling out and getting chubbier. Because of her Respiratory Rate cord attached to one foot and an IV in the other, I wasn't able to get a good shot of her toes, but here are her long (and now) fat fingers. The purple on her hand is, I think, the result of trying to put the IV in her hand instead of her foot. Those pesky needles! After about an hour at the hospital, Canon had had enough, so we decided to finally take him to the zoo. That place was packed. We parked in the grass almost immediately after entering the campus and far away from the zoo entrance. I'm all about being around lots of people, but crowds like this tend to make me nervous when I've got a small child with me. I have these horrible fears of kidnapping or just losing him. Barry carried him a good bit of the morning, but Canon was eager to get down and run around as well. We just tag-teamed chasing after him. We really had a great time, and Canon loved it. We decided to head toward the "Social Animals" exhibit, also known as the Monkeys. Canon loves making monkey noises. Along the way, we passed lots of birds, all of which Canon seemed fairly intrigued by. Most of the monkey exhibit was an indoor maze of cages and glass boxes. After the monkeys, we bought tokens to ride the train, knowing that Canon would love this the most. We were right!

Barry and I loved it, too. We got to see a lot of the park without having to chase Canon around. My favorite part was the new elephant exhibit that recently opened here. The zoo recently finished a "Passport to Africa" section that will eventually include three or four elephants. Right now, there are two elephants there, and one of them was out during our train ride.

My mind is full of numbers right now, so I can't be sure if the following information is correct. But I think that this elephant is 23 years old and weighs 13,000 pounds. Wow! After our train ride, Canon got to ring the train station bell.

Then we left to eat some lunch and take a nap. The line to get in the zoo had tripled in size when we walked out, and as we drove out of the park, there were cars stretched all the way down the street. Some were parked on the side of the street and some were just waiting to park. Hate we didn't come at this time!

While Canon napped, Barry graciously let me return to the hospital where I got to spend my daily one-on-one time with my daughter. The nurse got her out for me to hold, and we spent the next 45 minutes reading. When I finally caught myself falling so deep into sleep that I was worried I might drop her, I sorrowfully asked the nurse to put her back in bed. While her oxygen had not changed much throughout the day, she remained stable while I held her, with the assistance of the oxygen mask blowing close by. I stayed for a couple of hours before reuniting with the other half of my family. I can't wait for the days ahead when we can all be in the same room and not worry about Tera's oxygen saturation dropping, or Canon pushing buttons he shouldn't, or Barry being afraid to get too close to the baby, or me having to choose between one child or the other. Maybe I shouldn't even write this part down because one day, we won't even remember that these were ever our worries.

When Tera and I read today, we learned about "Praying for Kindness and Compassion." This chapter is much like yesterday's chapter of praying for a servant's heart. One very important point I noticed in this chapter is that we should not only pray for our children to show kindness and compassion to others, but we should also pray that others will have receptivity to our children's acts of kindness and compassion. I find this especially appropriate in my career as I see children with so little but lots of pride in the same classroom as children with more than enough. You would be amazed at the number of young children who see the needs of their classmates and want to help. While our first thoughts are usually to pray for those children to have the strength to give what they can, we often forget to pray that those "needy" children will actually accept these acts of "charity." This is a prayer not only for my biological children, but my students as well. Our prayer for tonight: "Thank you for showing compassion to us. I pray that Canon and Tera would follow your example, being compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love." Psalm 103:8

After a late dinner with Barry's family, I returned to the hospital with Leslie, Grant, Xan (their one-year-old son), Nonna and Poppa. Leslie and Grant haven't seen Tera since just a few days after her birth, and they could tell that she has been growing and getting better. Our favorite Night Nurse is taking care of Tera again tonight - yay! I can sleep easy tonight.