Living up to his Name!

The newest member of our family, Josiah has been living up to his name and wants to remind us all that the Lord Saves.  He has given us quite the fright a few times this last week.

Josiah recovering on our couch after his first "episode."

Last Sunday night I woke up and had a feeling that I needed to check on Josiah, and when I did, I noticed he wasn't breathing well.  He would take several deep breaths and then stop breathing all together.  We woke up Erin, a NICU nurse that was here for a few days, as well as Sheila our nurse.  They came upstairs and told us that he was forgetting to breath.  She timed him for a minute and he stopped breathing 5 times.  Some of these pauses would be for 10 seconds and he would need to be rubbed hard to reminded to breath.  We started him on oxygen and he eventually became more stable.

Monday evening Erin was holding Josiah and noticed that he quit breathing for 20 seconds.  We immediately put him on oxygen again. His pauses were more often and for much longer than they had been that morning.  She called Jan, our executive director and was encouraged to take Josiah to the hospital.  I knew this was best, but wasn't excited as this would mean taking him off of oxygen for at least the 30 min drive.  He was really bad in the car and quit breathing a lot.  Erin even had to breath into his mouth a few times to snap him back out of it.  At one point she asked how much longer and when we said 10 mins, she said good because he wouldn't make it longer than that.  I was a mess and Nick was driving faster than we ever have in Haiti!

We arrived at the Hospital and he was put on oxygen right away.  A large group of every type of visiting  doctors you can imagine were there waiting to consult with him when we arrived.  They did an ECHO on him which came back clear.  We even had a heart surgeon verify the ECHO and he agreed.  Lab work was done right away.  The original plan was to intibate him, but he responded really well to the oxygen and became stable, so they decided to stick with that. They spent several hours watching him and checking everything you can imagine.  His lab work came back clear the next morning.

I ended up spending that night in the hospital with him and Nick spent the following Night there.  Spending the night in the hospital isn't quite what I'm sure your imagining.  The Peds Ward is one giant room full of all the kids and their guardians.  All the cribs are right next to each other and it's jammed packed.  There is no room for beds for the parents, so instead, each is offered a plastic chair to sleep in for days on end while they wait for their childs health to improve.  I was blessed, my chair was new and not broken like many of the others.  Half way through the night I couldn't handle it anymore as I had been up the whole night before with him.  I had to get some sleep and that plastic chair wasn't doing it.  I decided I didn't care what anyone else thought, I crawled in Josiah's crib and got about an hour and a half of sleep before I was woke up by another Mom who let me know that I wasn't holding my child right.  We often get that kind of advice here, regardless of how we hold babies.  Regardless to say, I was pretty dang exhausted the next day.  In three days I slept for about 6 hours.  I almost fainted at one point due to exhaustion, but Nick gave me that night off and I slept for 10.5 hours, so I was able to recover.


Anyways, back to Josiah.

Josiah in the Hospital.  On oxygen, an IV in his scalp, and an NG tube in his nose!

His breathing was really labored Tuesday morning and he was retracting a lot, which means that his breaths were deep and would cave in so much you could see all his ribs. They were pretty concerned about the way he looked that morning.  His coloring was off, his feet had edema (swelling), and his stomach was bloated.  They decided to do a chest X-ray to see if it was pneumonia or something else.  This also came back clear.

Basically after all of this, they have decided that its just RSV, a virus, and theres nothing they can do except let it clear up on its own.  He was able to come home late Wednesday night and he hasn't been on oxygen since.  The car ride was a bit stressful for him and he quit breathing a few times, but has been very stable ever since.  We have been giving Josiah 24 hour care since he came home and will have to continue that for a while as we can't trust that he'll continue breathing on his own. Nick and I are splitting night shifts in half and taking turns going downstairs to work.  My Mom and step dad are coming next week to help with the older two and to take shifts with him as well!  He is drinking well and now weighs 4# 7 oz!

Thank you so much for your prayers during all of this.  It has been a long week, but we are so thankful for all the people God put in place these last few days to help care for our little boy.  We couldn't be happier with the care he has been given by both the international as well as Haitian medical personnel! 

We named him Josiah because we feel that the Lord saved his life when he was first born.  He also saved his life the day we went back to the hospital.  The kid just wants to live up to his name, but hopefully won't have to any more!  Please continue praying for him as he is still incredibly fragile.  And please pray for strength for Nick and I as we are already pretty tired from getting up with him and the incredibly busy week we have had!