Friday evening

Just checking in again to let you know how Jonas is doing. Morgan went home from the hospital this afternoon, so we are planning to travel to the hospital twice a day to visit him, once in the morning then again in the evening. The hospital is about 15 - 20 minutes car ride, but we will likely be taking taxis back and forth a lot. It's a little tricky balancing it with Elijah because he can't go into the ICU, so we have to take turns visiting Jonas. Our friends here have been helping a lot with driving us around and watching Elijah.....thank you!!

Jonas is still on the ventilator, but slowly he is doing more breathing on his own. His lungs are still full of fluid, so he needs to stay on the ventilator at least for another day. The fluid in his tissues is slowly being reabsorbed - and now he is on a fluid restriction to get rid of it faster. He's still on a medication to help keep his blood pressure up, but they are able to slowly taper it down. Last night he woke up and was very agitated and they had to give him some medication to calm him down, so he was very sleepy and lethargic today. That medication is off now, and tonight when we saw him, he opened his eyes a crack and looked at us as we were touching him. Jonas has jaundice and they had him under the phototherapy lights to help today. The best thing that happened today is that Jonas got to have his first milk!!! He's looking quite skinny for not eating in his first 3 days, so we are super excited that he was able to start having some pumped milk in his stomach through the tube in his mouth.

The doctors are feeling hopeful for the way things are going, and feel like day by day it's getting better. We are ready to see him have some lines out, especially the ventilator because it's pretty uncomfortable for him. We are praying specifically that tomorrow he would be well enough to come off the ventilator!

We took some pictures of him yesterday, but Bruce says we shouldn't post them because not everyone would want or could handle seeing him tubed up. So if you want to see his pics, email me and I'll send them to you.

Thank you guys for praying with us...we are so happy to have supportive friends and family in this time for us. All things considered we are doing well emotionally, although it feels like a lot of ups and downs each day. It was really hard on Morgan to leave the hospital today and not be just right down the hall from him all the time. But we know it is best for Elijah and our family to be together and give him some stability.