Autumn and Noah meet

Today I write from the bedside of my sleeping baby boy. Maria has advised me to hold him as much as possible, but he’s sleeping so peacefully…

It is 45 minutes later and Noah is again resting in his new crib. His big, beautiful eyes are fighting to stay open to continuously survey everything around him. Every time his eyelids start to sink, the slightest noise will trigger his curious eyes back into observation mode. Then his eyes get lazy and focus is lost as his heavy eyelids slide back over the eyes until the next distraction stirs him.

Earlier, while Noah was awake and agitated, I held him and learned a trick to help soothe him. I watched Noah’s nurse push his hollow, rubber pacifier into his mouth and wiggle it around until he took it and continued to wiggle it. I was hesitant to force his pacifier into his mouth after making him gag last weekend by doing the same thing. Nonetheless, I stuck that pacifier deep in his mouth, moved it side to side and, low and behold, Noah stopped crying and started sucking away. Being able to calm my fussy baby is one of my proudest accomplishments. After a month and a half of feeling helpless in being able to care for my son, I finally felt like I might be a good dad after all.

We had another family victory later on today as a result of our social worker pushing the powers that be to allow Autumn a chance to visit with her brother. After eating lunch in the PICU waiting room, Maria and I took Autumn back to meet her brother for the first time. It was wonderful having the whole family together at last. It only lasted for about ten minutes, but we took a whole memory card full of pictures to memorialize the moments. I’ll share some precious pictures once I get them off the camera.