A Picture is Worth A Thousand Tears

I finally got more pictures of Baby Aiden today! Oh boy, I was so excited. I really, really wanted to see the pictures. Oh but why? Why did I want to see the pictures? The pictures broke me.

These two in particular where my sister is feeding baby Aiden through his feeding tube.

When he doesn't take enough cc's through a bottle, this is what they have to do. Then they have to hold the tube up so the milk travels through the tube in Aiden's nose down to his tummy. They are slowly increasing how much he will take per feeding. Right now he's around 42 cc's. There are 29.6 cc's in just one ounce. This means Aiden is not quite taking 1.5 ounces per feeding right now. The average baby is drinking 2 ounces (or more) at this point. In order to keep his blood sugars stable, they have to make sure he gets enough nourishment. He has had trouble with learning how to even drink from the bottle and then he gets tired and falls asleep, the kind of deep REM sleep that some of us haven't known since infancy. And this other one she is taking his temperature. The thermometer is so huge and all the wires!

And this one, just breaks my heart further. I don't know if it invokes the same emotion in others, but it makes me so sad to see baby Aiden full of wires, tape and tubes. And he even has a shirt on in this one to cover some of all that.

Aiden is just so tiny and helpless. The picture below with my sister, for some reason, really sent a flood of emotions and awareness of the reality of my sister and brother-in-law (and mom's) days since Aiden was born. Spending hours in the hospital, traveling the weary hour (plus) trip to and from Boston every day. The anguish of saying good-bye at night. OH MY GOSH, the pictures are emotional snapshots in time... one after another after another.

Thank goodness today was a Good News Day because despite having a complete and totally ridiculous cry, I can remind myself he's getting better and there is a very strong sense of hope that the scariest and worst is behind him.

In fact, the first call I got today from my mom included the fabulous news that Aiden's blood sugars are up and staying stable longer. They had taken his glucose IV down to 1.8. By this (Tuesday) evening it was down to 1. According to my mom, my sister was literally cheering and dancing (okay, not really dancing).

"Yeah, I was going Woo! and stuff," My sister admitted to me later today. Well, I agree... WOOOOOOO!!!!

Overall, I think they had a pretty good day. Today was also the day they got to dress Aiden for the first time. When you have to wait until your baby is 10 days old to put him in his first onesie, it is a big deal!

Tomorrow, they will meet with the doctor again. Hoping for more good news.