time in the hospital

Well, Peter Joseph was born on April 25, the day after my birthday. He spent 10 days in the hospital NICU due to sporadic breathing & oxygenation problems. Well, the last 5 days were just observation to see if his problems had resolved themselves. We thank the Lord that he seems to be fine now, is home like a normal newborn, and has been cleared to be off the apnea monitor as well.

Being in the hospital almost 24/7 is another world. Not being aware of the weather outside, except to notice if it rained or not. Not much aware of news going on either. Just the NICU; washing up before you go in; walking down to see how Peter's doing today; pumping milk so that the nurses have something to feed him when I go home at night. Waiting to see when we can go home. Glad when we would check in to find that nothing else had come up overnight with the baby, that he had had a good night with no "events".

While we were there, April turned into May. The pea plants in the garden doubled in height. Jeff learned to put on his own shoes, and all the kids got practice brushing and even flossing their own teeth. My Mom held down the fort with them at home while we were gone, and David's mom helped out as well, taking the kids to have time at her house to give my Mom a break.

We were very happy to get to come home on May 4th, and be home for Jeff's 3rd birthday on May 5. And to have the pediatrician tell us on May 6th that we didn't really need to keep using the apnea monitor! (since Peter had been fine for a week at that point).

God has been so good to us! "The future still unknown..." but God knows it from beginning to end.