Great Success!

Edward had his surgery yesterday and everything went fantastic!  Katie and I arrived at the NICU around 6am to hold and kiss him one more time before he was taken down to the OR as he was posted for first case.  We were able to accompany him down with his nurse to the pre-op holding area where we met one last time with the surgical and anesthesia attendings.   Edward was lying happily in his incubator, sleeping peacefully and seemingly without a care in the world - in stark contrast to his parents standing above him, both anxiously wringing their hands and holding back the occasional nervous tear.  Finally, they wheeled him away, out of our watchful stare.

About two hours later, we got a call from the surgery attending reporting how great Edward had done and that the surgery went very well.  They found to large inguinal hernias and were able to repair both without incident.  Edward had the fortune of then undergoing his circumcision while under general anesthesia - most little boys aren't so lucky.  He was than taken to the PACU (post-anesthesia care unit) for recovery and hopefully for extubation.  Fortunately, Edward's lungs also performed wonderfully and he was able to be extubated almost immediately.  In fact, he returned to the NICU without any oxgyen at all!   He then spent most of yesterday recovering, but was already breastfeeding by mid-afternoon.

In fact, he has done so well recently that they are actually mentioning that magic word: discharge.  So well, that a few nurses who have taken care of him over the past 3 months, but who aren't working for the next few days are starting to say good-bye...you know...just in case.  So well, that they actually asked us to sleep over in the hospital with him tonight as a 'practice run for home!'  So consider this as a sort of live-blogging post, kind of like they do for major sporting events.

So, here we all sit in a small room off the side of the NICU....Katie, Edward and myself.  Spending the night together as family for the first time.  We are full of many emotions, but mostly joy and profound happiness (mixed in with a healthy dose of anxiety to be perfectly honest).  We are not home yet, but are close.  We likely have a handful of days ahead us, but not too many.  Certainly not 90 more.

We want to express our deepest thanks to all of our friends and family.  The outpouring of love and support has been non-stop and we could not have gotten this far without each of you, especially our parents.  We also want to thank you for all of your prayers as God certainly has been answering them and we have been so blessed to get to this far.  I also want to thank all the people who are friends of friends, mom's or dad's of friends, whom we have never met, but who nonetheless having been praying for us throughout this whole ordeal.  It has been so meaningful to hear that so many good people have been keeping us in their thoughts.  Don't worry, the blog is not ending quite yet.  We still have more work to do.  We just know that we cannot thank you all enough for all that you have already done.

Wish us luck tonight!