Jack

Well, we have a good news update and a bad news update on our little Jack. Good news... we finally have a diagnosis for him and he should be coming home on Thursday!! We are SO excited. You'd think it'd get easier, but each day it just gets harder and harder to "visit" your own son and kiss him goodbye as he looks up at you like, "What's going on? Why are you leaving me again?" Especially with Jack's sweet puppy-dog eyes! So we are really looking forward to having our little man home at last (...again).

The bad news is that Jack has a laryngeal cleft. This creates an opening between the larynx and the esophagus, allowing the milk he drinks to pass through the larynx and into his lungs. Luckily, our pediatric ENT says it's completely repairable through a scope, so he won't have to go under the knife. Whew! However, poor Jack is just too small for her to fit even the smallest scope with the necessary tools to do it. So Jack will come home while still on gavage feedings (tiny tube in the nose) until he's big enough for the procedure. The doctor is guessing about 3 weeks... let's hope it's not much longer than that.

Many kids don't receive this diagnosis until like 3-4 years old (or older!), and especially not while still in the NICU. So we feel very blessed that his OT/PT listened to the "little voice" in the back of her head (as she called it) and ordered the swallow study last week. This helped us to determine that something was wrong there. We also feel blessed, in a backwards sort of way, that Jack started going downhill just a day after being home last week. He also "happened" to have one of his episodes in front of our pediatrician who then contacted his neonatologist, who then had him readmitted to the NICU. If he never got readmitted, then we'd still be waiting out these breathing episodes, thinking that they were due to his prematurity and that he just needed to outgrow them. So many things have gone right (or wrong, in some cases) in just the right way that it's impossible to dismiss as coincidence or luck. The power of prayer is real, as is the power of the priesthood, God's power on the earth. Thank goodness for these trials and miracles in our lives to remind us of that.

I cannot believe it's already been that long, but happy 1-month birthday tomorrow Jack and Sadie! Hopefully we'll get around to taking (and posting) more pictures soon... :)