Proper Introductions

The past two days have been quite long and exciting for Henry. A good deal of time was spent from Thursday afternoon into Friday morning attempting to put in a central line. After trying to put the catheter in both arms and both legs, they had to do an ultrasound to find a deeper, more stable vein in his leg. To that point, he had been so quiet on the ventilator, in voice and movements, that they only needed a local anesthetic to get it done. Finally having some time to rest Friday afternoon, Henry continued to improve and by Friday evening he had gotten stable enough that they were able to remove him from the ventilator! This meant that Friday night, Paige and I were able to properly hold him for the first time!

While we were thrilled, it may have been just a little bit too much excitement for the little guy. The rest of the evening he started getting more fussy and his vital signs were getting a little wild. We let him go back to sleep for the rest of the night, as we went to do the same. 

Saturday turned out to be a great day. The overnight rest did wonders for Henry (all of us, actually). His numbers leveled out and are mostly trending in the right direction. The prostaglandin he is receiving for his heart started to have a bigger - expected - impact on his personality. He became more fussy, and for the first times he gave us some full-throated cries - music to our ears! All together, this meant he could finally get a bath from mom and dad, but that he hated it the whole time! After meeting a few more friends, we were again able to hold him for several hours. 

And late in the evening, Henry and Paige finally got some much needed skin-to-skin time. I'd say they enjoyed it: