Wash Behind Your Ears!

Well, it's 11:38 at night so I guess it's time to give you all a little update.

First I'll start with some of the basic medical facts...

Today they took Lincoln off the cpap (contstant positive air pressure) which meansno more annoying big tubes on his head! The best part is that we can actually see his little face (which we'll get to in some later pictures:) They also took the temporary IV line out of his belly button and put in a more permanent line in his arm. There are getting to be less and less wires! This is all good news and it means that he's progressing well. We had a good conversation with his night nurse who told us that they are waiting to finish one of his medications before they start to try and feed him drops of milk. There will be some road markers in his development process and learning to eat and digest is a big one. They're also hoping that his billibrubin (jaundice) count will go down soon. Another thing they're watching is a heart murmur. Tomorrow they'll do an echocardiogram to check it out. Pray that the hole will have closed up in response to the medication they've given him. At this point that's really all there is to report on in terms of medical stuff...now to the fun stuff!

April went to the hospital by herself this morning when I had to go into the church office for a little bit. She called me on the way home for lunch and she sounded really excited...she gave me the medical update for the morning and then shared how she's finally starting to feel like a Mom. It's hard to constantly watch our baby lying in his bed but not be able to take him home at the end of the day...so...when they let her be a part of caring for him it makes it a lot more real. Lincoln also had his eyes open a lot this morning which was really special. Oh yeah...he also offcially recieved his cool name card with poka dots and a turtle sticker on it. I had to remember to mention the important stuff of course.

Tonight when both of us went back the hospital together, they let us give him his first "bath" (which really just consists of wiping him down with a wet piece of guaze:)...but when he's just laying there in the same positions for days...even a little minor wipe down helps! And yes...to all the moms out there...we made sure to wash behind his tiny ears. I got some more practice changing his diaper (which happens to be the same size as my cell phone) but apparently I can use some more practice. I didn't quite the get the 1st one tight enough so the nurses sent us home with our first load of baby laundry:) He peed through his diaper hahaha:) After that we just spent some time resting our hands on him and praying for him...letting him wrap his hands around our fingers. It's still amazing that he knows who we are.

If you were to ask me how we're doing (which many of you have), I would say, "We're doing pretty good". It's true, I think we are doing pretty good but at the same time, it's not getting any easier to have to say good night and leave Lincoln at the hospital. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you could pray for one thing...pray for that. Ask God to watch over Lincoln when he sleeps at night. Ask God to take our place and sit in the rocking chair next to his bed. Ask God to put his hands through the holes in Lincolns bed and rest his powerful hands on Linc's tiny body.