On my way. . .

To hold my baby for the first time. :) With no chest tube. :)

Progress?

He's been off the ventilator for about an hour! :) He still has his chest tube which is the big one we need to get rid of but after a few days of nothing we're excited. (We have to be cautiously excited because he can go back on just as easily, but we're just being happy about it right now.) I will be going up to see my son's face without tubes for the first time since the O.R. And of course when I get home I'll post a picture. :)

For those of you wondering what you can do to help. Just keep him in your prayers. We're finding that this is just a big waiting game and we're feeling as helpless as everybody else. We appreciate all of the offers for help. We'll not be shy about asking if we think of something. :) Right now we mostly just need those prayers. Love ya everybody!

Update

Just wanted to pop in and update everybody. Today was a rough day. We ended up taking a step back. We thought we might be able to get some of the tubes out of our little guy but he kinda relapsed and so now we're back to square one. It's just a big waiting game. He has to hit certain milestones, then maintain the progress for x amount of hours before they can decide if it was really progress. It's sooooo frustrating.

I will be coming home from the hospital tomorrow (thursday) without Brigham. Which doesn't make us very happy, but at least we know he's in the best possible care. Emotionally I think we're just kinda zapped.

We're kinda keeping to ourselves for right now, but will try to keep everyone updated on stuff here. We love you guys, thanks for all of the love and support. We know things could be much worse. We're so blessed that things have gone as well as they have. We definitely feel like Heavenly Father is looking out for us.

The Newest Shupe

Thanks to recent news reports and my active imagination we're starting a new blog and keeping it private. :) So here's our first private blog post.

I really got on tonight so I can share our good news. On Sunday, November 16th Brigham Scot Shupe joined our family. He weighed in at 7lbs. 1oz. and 20 1/2 inches long.

We are very excited even though all has not gone smoothly. He came about 2 weeks before his due date because the doctor was worried about some incision pain I'd been having. It turns out her fears were well founded, and my old c-section scars were not holding up to baby and lots of fluid too well.

Because of the nature of c-section births not all of the fluid was squeezed out of Brigham's lungs during the birth. Some babies are able to work through it on their own but Brigham struggled. So he was sent to the NICU where he's been well cared for. This morning they said his lungs had dried out but he's had a few set backs. So we're just waiting to see how long it will take him to work through everything before they can send him home. They said he's strong and doing well but we have just a little ways to go before they let us bring him home. They've assured us that this is not uncommon for c-section babies and it's just a matter of time before we're able to bring him home.

So we're thrilled, and we think he's adorable and we can't wait until they get rid of the tubes so we can hold him. :) For now we're just hanging out here waitin' for the doctors to say "He's all better." I have to say this has been the most emotional few days of my life. We're all a little on the exhausted side but wanted to let you know what's going on. I can't even tell you how thankful I am for the priesthood, prayer and my awesome family.