pushed to the edge

let me start with the good news: tracee's headaches are much improved and she is slowly on a better path to recovery. she is still real tired and wiped out from much activity on her feet but that is to be expected. in fact, i think the only headaches she gets now are from crying. she had one of those yesterday.
we had a consult with the neonatologist and one of the nurse practitioners about what their plan of attack might be over the next 24-48 hours yesterday morning on the phone. they explained to us that they wanted to go over any questions we might have about gavin's lungs and what their plan of attack was going to be since, once it was time, they would need to act quickly if gavin's body was showing he needed additional support. let me stop right here and explain that because of just how poor and sick gavin's lungs are and have been, they wanted to give him a steroid to help improve function. gavin's urine output had decreased significantly and he had put on a lot of fluid weight which made him look puffy. his blood pressure was low and his heart rate was high. there was concern that he might be fighting an infection that was causing all of this (his cultures haven't shown to be growing anything)but they just couldn't tell.
After getting off of the phone with them, tracee and i spoke and understood that they may be calling us but we didn't expect a call anytime soon. we went to lay by the pool for a while. a few hours after our initial phone call with them, we got a call from the dr. that they wanted to go ahead and meet at 6:30 to go through everything with us because we had reached that time to go ahead and talk about giving the steroid. of course, tracee and i had been praying that we would never reach that point and that gavin's lungs would RESPOND! turns out that they didn't and so tracee and I got cleaned up and made our way to the NICU. when we got there his vitals weren't great and so we discussed the plan again. we agreed that the steroid was the best possible option for gavin but that it is very rare to be given in babies his age. normally babies that are 4 months old would get this type of boost. we were told he would be getting a very low dosage and that should help protect him against potential risks such as cerebral palsey and decreased IQ. they went ahead and administered the steroid about 7ish and we hung around for about 20 minutes to see how things would begin to go. the dr. explained to us that it would take several hours for it to begin to show signs of improvement and that if we didn't see any positive results we would address it again about 6 hours later. we cried. we prayed. we asked God to shine His face upon us and to show us His healing and goodness. one of the NNP's cried with tracee and i. she let down the side of his incubator and let us both kiss his little head. what  a precious and unforgettable moment for us. we really like her. she has been taking such good care of gavin. her shift was over at 7pm but she didn't want to leave. i know that in that moment i certainly felt like Abraham going up to the alter; being asked to sacrifice his one and only son.
we had plans to meet the goble's for dinner and decided to do so because we were teetering on the edge as it was and needed their wisdom and Godly encouragement. as we sat at dinner and cried and shared our emotions; our prayers and hopes were with gavin. tracee felt responsible as if this is her fault he came so early. i felt like everytime we cried out to God for His healing touch on our boy, it was to no avail. our ultimate fear is to lose our son and we both had to acknowledge that and confess that to God out loud. He already knew in our hearts what we were feeling but i know for me i was so afraid to go there because it just seems like that was/is going to be the outcome. we stopped by the goble home after dinner to grab some pillows and clothes to wear as we stayed in a room they had available in the NICU so we could be close to gavin. when we arrived, his night nurse said that he was doing pretty well (considering) and that he had begun to pee which was good. both tracee and i checked on him and i talked to the NNP and she felt like the steroids were working and that he was showing signs of improvement.
we headed to bed - it felt good to be about 200 feet away from gavin at bedtime instead of 30 miles. we prayed as we drifted off to sleep. about 8am this morning we got up to check on him. he had a pretty good night! he pee'd a ton! in fact, on 2 separate occasions, he pee'd so much that he soaked through is diaper and they had to change out all of his bedding! what that really meant was that his blood pressure had improved, his kidneys were working again and his heart rate and saturation rates were much improved. his chest xray from this morning looked better than yesterday but still hazy. this was the move from God we were looking for!
gavin began to do some of the work again and i know that the whole staff was relieved. gavin is the sickest baby in the NICU right now: those were the words of the dr. yesterday afternoon.
we have been pushed to the edge; camped by the red sea with no where to go, looking for God to make a way. He has led us to this place, we PLEAD for a way of escape.
today we are trying to catch up on some rest back at home and hoping that the phone doesn't ring today. they are really going to work at "cautiously being aggressive" for gavin today. pray that they would be able to wean down his oxygen further and that his vitals will allow. we need his little lungs to start working!!!
we can't do this on our own and so we rejoice in the support we get and knowing that you all follow our updates and can get a glimpse of what we are going through. this is by far the hardest thing we have ever had to experience and endure.

jeramy