Waiting in Limbo

                Last few days Gibson has been doing great.  He loves his new ventilator and just can’t wait to be extubated! He has started to throw little temper tantrums that make him gag and then coughs which break up the mucus and then the nurse has to suction his lungs.  Just a terrible cycle that he goes through and he hates it!  Getting the tube out will solve all those problems.

                The only thing holding us back from getting extubated is fixing his partial bowel obstruction where the hernia is.  In the upper GI he had a few days ago did show that the small portion of the herniated bowel is partially obstructing the flow through his digestive tract.  Sounds like a fairly simple fix, but the surgeons are very hesitant to reopen his incision just to fix just a ‘partial obstruction’.   It has been frustrating but you can’t question the surgeons.  They are professionals and know more than we do and are doing the best for Gibson.  Although he really only has one lung, we don’t want to risk him aspirating again and harming his good lung after all the progress he’s made so far. Without the surgery we can’t really move forward.  He can’t start feeds again or get extubated. He’s just hanging in limbo right now.  The sooner we can get him going on feeding and breathing on his own, the sooner we can get him home! J  Just hoping that Dr. Barnhart will see where we and the nurses and NICU doctors are coming from with the surgery and he’ll decide to do it and help Gibson’s progress. 

                Everything else is going awesome!  We are able to hold Gibson everyday for about an hour each, isn’t much but it makes our day every time.  We can’t wait till he’s extubated and we can pick him up and comfort him when he needs it or we need it. We love our NICU team and how well they take care of our baby. It definitely makes this journey an easier one.

 X-Ray showing the obstruction.

 The dang hernia.

 He's not so sure about the rattle, but we thought we'd let him play for a bit.

 First time wearing clothes!! Our nurse had him dressed and surprised us. Kaydi got teary eyed.

 Somehow he managed to fit his finger in his mouth with the tubes. Super cute

 Finger puppets. He reached up a couple times.

 His new snuggle partner in bed. Babies like them because it puts pressure agianst their bodies when they're sleeping so they don't feel alone. It's like a rice bag thing. 

 He got caught tugging at his tubes and was upset.

And here he is doing it again... He doesn't know what else to do with those long fingers. He likes to keep us and the nurses busy :)