Where's the next stop because I want off this bus! So much has happened in the past few days that my mind is a bit muddled. You will have to bear with me as I try to sort it out and update everyone.

Grant and Bryce had been doing spectacularly this past week. They were both gaining weight and eating like champs. Grant began bottle feeding and was actually doing better than big brother who'd been bottle feeding for a couple of weeks. We began talking about the things that were needing to take place before they go to care-by-parent and then home. Then everything came to a crashing halt with Grant on Tuesday. Last week both boys had their routine eye exams. Bryce's are premature but ok so far. Grant has retinopathy and plus disease (I will post links to explain later) and they decided to repeat his eye exam on Monday. Monday morning the pediatrician looked at his eyes and decided that he may need surgery and wanted Dr. Essmon, the neo-surgeon, to take a look and give his opinion on Tuesday. Its not a super intensive surgery. They do it in the NICU. On Tuesday morning I received a call that they were doing the surgery at noon. In the middle of the worst blizzard since 1912 we headed up to the hospital to be with the boys.

When we arrived in the NICU after a very snowy drive Grant had already been moved to the isolation room for surgery prepping while Bryce remained in their spot on the back row. We gave Grant a kiss before they intubated and went back to see Bryce. I chatted with the mom of triplets and a few of the nurses; all of us blissfully unaware what was taking place with Grant. During intubation, Grant decided he wanted no part of it and coded. He dropped his heart rate dangerously low and his oxygen saturation plummeted. They had to administer 6 minutes of chest compressions and two rounds of epinepherine to get him back up. I am in awe of how resilient infants are. If you or I had coded like that we'd be a vegetable; best case scenario. They had to very heavily sedate him to do the surgery but the procedure, though taking three times as long as anticipated, went well.

Through the night, Grant began dropping his heart rate and sats more and more often. He wasn't supposed to be on the vent for more than 2 or 3 hours after intubation but due to the severity of his events, he remained on it through the night. They were able to wean his pressure settings some that night and into Wednesday but as his events became more severe, his settings had to go back up. Paul and I were very discouraged on Wednesday night to see that he was still intubated and an extreme touch-me-not. I whispered quietly to him that I loved him in hopes that hearing my voice would help him but it made his sats drop really low. I cried. What happened to my cuddle bug?? What happened to my sweet little boy? Here he was laying, completely miserable and very very touchy with a tube once again down his throat. I felt like it was December all over again. I did have a positive note to help me smile a little. I have gotten the clear to attempt nursing Bryce once a day. Last night with our first attempt, he nursed like a champ. I am very thankful for that major blessing amidst the chaos.

This morning I called for an update on Grant and his nurse said they were going to attempt to extubate him and see if that helped him a bit. At 11:30am he was extubated but after a lot of bagging and dropped sats, he was reintubated. They're discussing giving him steroids and restarting caffeine to see if we cant get him off the ventilator. Paul and I are completely discouraged by how things have gone backwards and I have had cried quite a bit in the past few days but we know and believe that he is in God's hands and he will rebound.

Please please pray for Grant's healing. Pray with us that he does not develop pneumonia or long term effects from this. I'm so ready to have my sons home with me. I'm so ready for my precious boys to finally be able to sleep soundly in our arms without having to put them back in isolates. I'm ready to not have to ask to hold them or touch them.