Waiting and Waiting and Waiting and Waiting

There was a Code Blue in the NICU the other day. For those of you who are unfamiliar with hospitals, a Code Blue means that a patient is in need of immediate resuscitation due to cardiac or respiratory arrest. I don't know if the baby made it. We passed the mother in the hallway on our way home. Judging by her face, it looked like bad news.

It is easy to forget where I am sometimes. The nurses do such a good job of creating a nursery atmosphere. All of the hallways are named like streets (Starfish Circle, Seahorse Street - Elijah lives on Dolphin Drive). Some of the rooms have swings, baby blankets, and mobiles, and you can hear music in the hallway as you walk by them. Then you see the babies themselves and remember why we're all there. Some babies weigh as little as two pounds. Many can't breathe by themselves. Every moment they are alive is a miracle by the standards of medicine as recent as 50 years ago.

My heart broke for that mother, not because I couldn't imagine her pain, but because I could. I had envisioned that phone call so many times when Elijah was at his sickest. I knew the anguish of watching him stop breathing and imagining life without him. I grieve with her.

I also forget that Phil's gone, not just some of the time, but most of the time. When I remember, my gut feels like lead. Maybe it's just tiredness that makes me forget these things. Or maybe I am coping. It's always better to go through life without constantly dwelling on how bad things are.

Elijah has his very own crib, so we are out of the isolette. If he keeps up his body temperature, he can stay out of it. He also has a bouncy seat. His crib has a mobile that plays classical music, and he's loving it. It calms him right down. He weighed in at 1.91 kilos last night (about 4 lbs 3 oz). We have 1.1 kilos to go before we put him back together.

There are very few things that I count as a success or as progress. Weight gain is one of them. I don't get excited about him coming off the feeding tube or the IV except that those events give him comfort, if only briefly. He came off the feeding tube for a few days, but he had to go right back on it when he didn't tolerate his food well. That is not a victory. Taking out the IV will be nice, even if it just gives him a break for a while, but it is not a victory. Gaining an ounce is a victory. Wearing clothes is a victory. Those are things he won't move backwards from. My Aunt and Uncle gave me very good advice, having walked this path themselves. They told me that every day will feel like two steps forward and one step back. We had a few backward steps the last couple of days. I've become better at managing disappointment, but I'm still desperate to get him home, away from the world where babies stop breathing and their hearts stop beating and their mothers stand helplessly by.