May 7, 2011

Last night Jansen was moved from the CICU ward to the high dependency normal ward. He was still in stable condition but attached to a lot of monitors and drips.  The doctors were slightly worried because he hadn't had a bowel movement since he was born and pretty much while they were standing there talking about it he had a huge and loud dirty nappy, so that was one less worry.  That's my boy.
Today Arie and my mom came down from Cambridge to stay for the weekend (Thanks so much for getting them to the train, Justine!). It has been wonderful to get to see them and spend some time with Arie after a couple of days apart. He's not too sure what he thinks about baby Jansen and he definitely doesn't like it when mom is holding Jansen and he can't be held too, but overall he likes to talk about the baby and he likes it that it's "his" brother (he's very into what is "yours" and "not yours" right now).
Jansen was doing well this afternoon so they let me try to breastfeed again and he took almost a full feed from the breast. That's a nice answer to prayer. He'll have to re-learn to breastfeed again after the surgery but it will be nice if we can get some sort of base set before the surgery. Unfortunately his next feed he wouldn't breastfeed and then he had some drops in his oxygen saturation levels in the late afternoon so they put him on a bit of oxygen and I didn't get to try to feed him any more today.  Still, I'll celebrate the little victories. :)
It was a busy day going between playing at the park with Arie and having meals with him and doing bedtime and visiting Jansen every few hours so we are a bit tired, but certainly blessed to have my mom and Arie here.
The doctors are tentatively scheduling surgery for Thursday. Before we knew it was extra complicated they said it would be about 6 hours in surgery, so it may be even longer than that now. Yeah, not looking forward to Thursday much.
Ryan is planning to take the train back to Cambridge with Arie tomorrow night and stay there probably until Tuesday and my mom will stay down in London with me for a couple of days.
Thanks again all for your prayers and help. We feel very supported in prayer. Please pray for Jansen to stay stable for the next few days and to get stronger for his surgery. The doctors were a bit worried that he is getting jaundiced, so please pray for that to clear up and not affect him or the surgery plan. Pray for Ryan as it will be hard for him to leave and be away from Jansen and me for a couple of days. And of course, pray for the surgeon who will be performing the surgery, that he will be well prepared and that God will work through him to heal our little boy.  Thanks!
(I promise more pictures tomorrow...)