Notice anything different?

This morning our daily update included the great news that they felt Greydon was ready to graduate to the nasal cannula! This is a great sign. In other words his lungs and breathing are doing well enough that they feel they can give him the help he still needs with only the little plastic oxygen tube in his nose. They were going to change him over early in the day, but right when they came to do it he started working hard to breath (a bunch of numbers on a bunch of machines), so they let him be. Later he had done well all day so they switched him over about 7pm tonight. We've been warned that he still can fluctuate back and forth between different needs, but this is a good sign.

This morning Kristen was able to "feed him". Currently this consists of pushing the plunger on a syringe into his feeding tube, but it was still a great mothering moment. In other words they are trying his little belly on milk again.. watching to see how he handles it. There weren't any instant problems, so we'll see. This is also good.

Also you may notice in the picture at the top that he is not in a spotlight. They took him completely off the billy lights, more good news that his jaundice is looking pretty good.

This morning's x-ray showed that his umbilical IV didn't appear to be in the right spot any more, so they took another x-ray this afternoon to determine if it needed to be replaced with an external pic line. IV's and pic lines can't stay in the same place forever or you get infections. They had planned to change out his umbilical line in a week, so changing it now would've meant more holes and jabs, but the second x-ray showed that the line was good still after all and didn't need to be changed again yet. So we had 4 really good pieces of news today.

This next bit might make the post a little long and personal, but I feel like I should talk about all of the prayers and the fast for Kristen and Wolverine before he got here. I am not sure exactly how anybody who has been so kind as to pray or fast for us has worded their conversations with God, but I would like to express my testimony as to the effectiveness of those prayers on our behalf.

If you haven't heard the whole story, Kristen went in for a regular check up on Thursday and got a good bill of health. Which was an answer to a very specific prayer of mine. Kristen's family was coming through town on their way to a cruise that had been scheduled for over a year and was supposed to be done long before Greydon was due to arrive. I know Kristen pretty well by now. I can think of very few things that would stress her out more than the thought that she somehow caused her parents and sister to not go on their vacation. Go ahead and say to yourself "that's just silly" It really doesn't matter how logical or illogical you find it, that's Kristen, she hates the idea of imposing, her humility is one of the qualities that I just love about her, even though it manifests itself in weird ways like this sometimes. So I prayed very specifically for Kristen to be in good enough health that her family would not feel the need to change their plans and therefore cause Kristen any stress. My payers were answered, she was great up until the time they got on the plane.

The next part, no I'm still not done, is to make sure that no one can misinterpret Wolverine's quick arrival as an unanswered prayer.

Friday morning we needed to drop a sample for a test off to the lab at the Orem hospital. I could've done this, or Kristen just had to walk in, hand something to a receptionist and leave. Kristen came, and went in with the sample. Kristen had a little bit of a headache that was a little different than normal, and she felt like it couldn't hurt to have her blood pressure checked.. "PRAYER ALERT PRAYER ALERT PRAYER ALERT" Back to the unassuming person she is, combined with having a huge problem with random people invading her personal space, Kristen has never volunteered for a medical test in her life. I know Heavenly Father watched out for us Friday morning and proved he truly loves us. Call it coincidence if you refuse to see the divine in your surroundings. I am too humble currently to risk being so callous and blind. If she hadn't followed that prompting, feeling, inkling, Greydon and Kristen could easily both not be here today. I don't think I am exaggerating. During the downward spiral that lasted all of Friday and ended with a 1:30 am emergency c-section, Kristen never really felt that bad. She later said, during recovery, that she never realized how sick she was until she started feeling better, because it came on slow. Our next appointment wasn't scheduled until Monday morning. They finally got Greydon out just as Saturday was starting because Kristen was ready to seize or bleed internally with blood that didn't have enough platelettes to clot and her kidneys were close to no longer functioning... but she just felt tired, I tremble to think how long we would've waited to go in over the weekend.

Thank you for your prayers. I have a family. And a stronger testimony for it.

I apologize to use such a public forum for something so personal, but I would hate for anybody to question.

Calvin