A Very Happy Anniversary

Here's a picture of the peaches, just to show off :)





Friday when we got to the hospital the respiratory therapist told us he was doing better - he was feeding again, and they were cutting back more on the respirator. She told us that, as planned, they were doing away with the antibiotic treatment on Saturday, and that they were hoping to remove the ventilator on Saturday too. Then when Liz went back Friday night, they were just preparing to move him to the normal ventilator instead of the oscillating ventilator. And they had upped his feeding regimen. We were happy again about the baby steps, but not wanting to hope for too much for Saturday.

Saturday morning we took the boys up in-between soccer games. Because there is a four-visitor limit, I took the boys in while Liz stayed in the waiting area. He was OFF THE VENTILLATOR ENTIRELY!!! We were to excited. We stayed for a few minutes, and then we decided it was time to go out and let mom come in. I asked Tyler to stay with his brothers so I could go back in with Liz. I wanted to see her face.
Well, as we walked in to the room, she saw there was no incubator. When she got up to see her baby, first she smiled, and then she cried. It was a really cool moment, to put it mildly.

We couldn't hold him yet, since he still had a tube in through his belly button, but they said we probably could when we came back later in the day.













We all enjoyed looking at our cute baby, without the tubes and tape masking his face. He was a little stressed - his breathing was all over the place and he kept shaking. I guess they keep babies on morphine to sedate them so they don't yank out the ventillator, and so he was going through withdrawls. When Isaac stepped on the foot pedal and raised the top off the incubator, we decided it was probably time to get ready to leave.











For our 11-year anniversary, Kathy and Mary came to our house so Liz and I could go out. We went to the Boybay Grill in Ogden for some amazing (but not cheap) Indian food, and then we went to the hospital to see our baby. We came in and the nurse started saying how they do diaper changes at 7, and it was now 8, and that they like parents to come in at diaper change time if they want to hold their babies, BUT since we hadn't held him since he was born, she'd make an exception. YEAH!! SHe handed us gowns so we could hold him skin to skin and said to take off our shirts and put on the gowns, she shut the curtains and left us. We changed really, REALLY fast.

This was the coolest time we've had since Nicholas was born. Liz's smile was back. She was glowing. Nick was wide awake and just stared at his mommy the whole time she held him, talked to him, and snuggled.









Then it was my turn. I finally got the daddy moment I had been waiting for - holding my little one on my chest while he relaxed and finally went to sleep.











We went hope elated with the day's events. It was the first day all week that Liz didn't cry while going to sleep. It was a very happy anniversary.