A Big Day...It's Been A Month!

Today was a big day for a couple reasons...

As of today, Lincoln has been in the NICU for exactly one month. As I told some friends, the hospital has become our second home.

While April and I were driving to the hospital today, we were talking about how it's hard to not know the future. Yes, we know that Lincoln is doing well - he's consistently gaining weight...he's beginning to learn the whole eating thing...and he's able to maintain an acceptable body temperature most of the time. These are all good signs but we still have no guarantees of how much longer he will have to spend in the NICU. There are just some things that Lincoln still needs to be able to do before he can come home, and there isn't a ton we can do to control those things. Yes, I know...that good old "control" word:-) We were a little discouraged and feeling like Lincoln is just kind of maintaining and not really moving forward much, so April prayed for some encouragement.

This evening when his nurse was giving us an update, she read some instructions from one of the Neonatologists. The doctor had written orders for the nurse to take Lincoln off the nasal cannula...to see how he does at breathing completely on his own. We were pretty surprised...as was the nurse. But following the doctors orders, she took away the security blanket of constant oxygen flow and stood by to see how he did. We were really excited to watch his oxgyen levels go up and stay up! He did great at breathing on his own. It was just the kind of encouragement we needed. While there is still a chance he may go back on some oxygen in the future, we're hoping for the best.

Another reason that today was a big day...we were reminded that life is still really fragile. After seeing Lincoln breath great on his own for a little bit, we went to eat something for dinner. When we got back he was still doing good. We sat down for a few minutes until Lincoln's heart rate dropped really low...really fast. Completely unknown to us, he was choking on some spit-up. He didn't make any sounds to give us a clue that something was wrong. One of the alarms on his monitor just went off and two nurses ran over. They started suctioning his mouth. They unwrapped him and starting rubbing his body to keep his heart going. April and I were just standing there frozen, really scared. No warning...it just happened really quick. Once things calmed down, and Lincoln was stable again, the nurse turned him on his side to prevent any more of these episodes. For the rest of the night, all of his vital signs were normal.

For a few minutes we watched as Lincoln (or God) reminded us that life can change in a second. What's really weird is that even as I write these words, I' m reminded of a song I talked about in a blog post during the first week of our adventure. The song "God You Reign"..well I think it's pretty self-explanatory what the song is about from the title...but, no matter how much we think we've got things figured out...no matter how great things are going...God is still in charge.

We pray with our hands on Lincoln every night before we come home so I am going to ask you to take a minute and pray for Lincoln right now. Ask God to wrap his awesome arms around Lincoln and watch over him as the next days and weeks go by. Your thoughts and prayers mean a lot to us.

Here's a quick look back at some moments from the first month of Lincoln's life.