Five Weeks Old

Tyler is doing well. He is eating wonderfully and growing at a great rate. He has visits at the bar and is surpassing expectations with his interest and ability to suckle. They have started to wean him down on the high-flow and is tolerating it well. The last couple of days we've seen less A's and B's. Today, he has another ultrasound to see how his ventricles are doing. The neonatal team is rather sure he will go to surgery next week for a shunt. (This surgery thing is starting to sound like a broken record). Over all we are waiting for him to grow and his head issues to be resolved.

Rachel is doing great. Today's game is playing birthday party. She sings "Happy Birthday" to everyone while serving a block puzzle cake. Some of the blocks are stack up as a candle and we have to blow out the candle before we can eat the cake. She is a very good server.

When she wasn't serving birthday block cake, she was helping Daddy hammer some nails. We are still trying to make the necessary repairs to our house. One of the projects Ben was working on was getting the ground squirrels evicted from the garage by installing the trim again. (In May he started to fix the rot behind all the trim and clapboards).

It is very nice to be home for a while. The ICN is very noisy and busy. To spend repeated whole days in there is very exhausting mentally and physically. I'm not sure how babies are able to sleep and grow in this environment. If the nurses or us aren't changing Tyler's diaper, giving him an exam, or feeding him, there are alarms sounding, people coming and going, and other babies crying. Ben and I are toast at the end of the day. Then add the mental strain that our baby is here. Constantly on the verge of surgery for such a tiny little baby, seeing him hooked up to wires and tubes, and the unknown. It's a small wonder both of us are sane still after five weeks. It's a full time job not to let depression set in.