About as good as it can get right now!

Day 5 - Wednesday the 9th:

It was amazing to get to walk into the left wing of the NICU and not the right wing of the NICU. We were shown to where our little boy was and there he was FINALLY the way we have been dying to see him. No C-Pap, no IV, no feeding tube - just monitoring wires. He was awake so I was talking to him and the nurse said "you can go ahead and pick him up". I was kind of surprised that we didn't have to get any permission to move him but so eager to hold him on my own!

He was awake for awhile before he nestled back in to sleep. We just spent the afternoon holding him, cuddling him, kissing him, taking pictures of him, and feeding him. It was so nice and really made us eager to get him home. Leaving him today was NOT easy. I think something was just different in the fact that he was not on any intervention so it felt like he didn't need to be there and that he was just a normal baby. It was hard to put him down and walk away from him since he was so "normal".

So what is going on from here? They are pretty much just monitoring him to make sure he doesn't have any further breathing problems. He is eating like a champion. They try to feed the babies every 3 hours on a schedule but they said he wants none of that. He is eating more often and a lot more than they were originally offering him. They had us bring up the car seat and were going to do that test sometime last night on him so hopefully he passed that! It is so great to be in this place. At this point they are pretty confident he will be home by Friday so we are almost through this storm.

We are so thankful and grateful to everyone for their thoughts, words of encouragement, and prayers while we are going through this time. We are often asked how we are doing and how I am recovering. Emotionally, I think we are handling this about as good as can be. It is so difficult to have your newborn baby sick. It is so hard to not have Malachi at home with us. It was so unnatural to have this baby I carried and had bonded with be instantly removed from my body and not get to see or touch or hold him. It has brought out this momma bear instinct in me and I am going to have a really tough time sharing him with others for awhile. As far as my recovery it is going really well. It is amazing what the body can do when it is forced to recover quickly. I am very tired and feel like I am running on fumes most of the time, but that isn't going to get better anytime soon and I am very ready for Mr. Eli to be the one keeping me awake at night!