Day 3 for Carson

Hello all,

What a roller coaster of a day.  As we look toward the milestone of bringing Carson home from the hospital,  we have several smaller goals for along the way.  Getting to hold him in our arms, promoting him from the incubator side of the nicu to the crib side, changing his diaper and getting to handle more of his care ourselves rather than observing it - these are some of the bigger ones  (wait, what am I saying - diapers and observing only is the way to go).  

A goal we had for today was to finally see his eyes.

Poor guy has been under some pretty harsh lighting in the incubators since birth and has kept them shut every chance we have had to see him so far.  Being on pain meds for a good percentage of his life so far hasn't helped either.

When we saw him this morning we received good news that he would be off the pain meds at 10am.  Our afternoon visit was going to be our first really good chance.  When we got to his bedside I went right to work on tickling and prodding him along gently and he responded pretty quickly.  I saw his eyes fluttering and definitely got a few glances of some deep blue eyeballs.  Mom was just coming around the bedside to see for herself when the station next to us in the room had a situation that needed some major attention.  We had to cut our visit very short...and say a prayer for that baby and his family on the way out.  We wish the very best for them for their very little guy, he did seem more stable later that night.

Keep hanging in there Carson!

With the afternoon visit cut short we needed to push for an evening visit, but that got pushed even later with a shift change so we grabbed a quick bite and sent Grandma Orr off just after traffic died down so that she could arrive home safely and at a reasonable hour.  On our return to the room we learned the bad news that Mom was now unable to leave the hospital for a final visit because darkness had fallen and the easy access street overpass ramp had closed.  After stopping, praying, and politely working with the nurses, special arrangements were made to allow us through for that final visit.

Returning to the same tickling, prodding, and verbal stimulation from earlier did not yield the same quick results this time around.  Carson was out of it and who could blame him.  I'm sure his body is having quite a few of the ups and downs of exhaustion as it works steadily on recovering from surgery.  He definitely was responding with hand gripping but it was frustrating to not be able to get his eyes going again for Mom.  The truth was that she was just ecstatic to get to see him for this last visit after it looked like that wasn't going to happen.  As I left to let Aunt Ruth get her final visit (we are only allowed two a time in to see him among several other limitations) I returned to the waiting room and just praised God for allowing Mom this moment that she needed.  A day of ups and downs, trusting in Him and leaning on His understanding rather than on our own.


Suddenly, I see the lights go out in the nicu from my spot in the waiting room down the hall.  That's odd, I wondered if they're chasing the visitors out because of how late it is.  Mom came out moments later with a grin from ear to ear and said they were doing some type of testing and that's what the lights were all about, but Carson reacted immediately by opening his eyes several times now that things were dimmed.  She hurried me in to get another look myself and I did my best to get it on camera.  His eyes were flickering open and closed so it was very difficult to get a shot with them open, but I think I did finally manage to document at least a little peak with the last shot.

Thank you all for your continued prayers.  The results of them can be both seen and felt in our lives in a very real way.  We love you all and are so blessed to have such wonderful people loving and supporting us.  What a mighty God we serve!