For a Month

Roscoe's trach tube surgery was on June 10th, over one month ago. We arrived at UCSF on June 18th, so in a few days we'll have been relocated from our house for a month as well. Looking back, it doesn't feel like it's been that long.

He hasn't been weighed or measured much recently, so we're not sure how much he's grown during this time. Several people have mentioned that he looks larger, but to us it looks like he's been frozen in time since one month ago. As you may have noticed, it also makes new pictures look fairly similar to previous pictures, since he doesn't wear different clothes each day that would change his "look". To my knowledge, when we put socks on his feet yesterday to keep them warm it was the first time he'd worn clothes in the past month. We are looking forward to dressing him in clothes again.

We also hadn't held him in a month ... until yesterday. We repeatedly asked the doctors to hold Roscoe, but he kept having mild instability which made them nervous about holding. They were nervous that he'd move around and dislodge one of his IVs (particularly the flaky arterial one) which would set him back further. Part of the real struggle for us has been to see him crying and not being able to pick him up to console him. We know that he is a social baby and that sometimes he's just bored or wants a different perspective. When we are unable to console him with holding, so then the only remaining solution is drugs if we can't get him calmed down in another way.

Roscoe had such a great night and slept so well, that his nurse took the time to make him this name tag:

With a great night and a stable morning, they prepped for holding by putting all of his machines onto a mobile pole that could be moved along with him. Then they sat me in a chair next to the bed and 3 nurses helped move him onto the pillow sitting in my lap, to make sure none of the cords came loose. He was super-smiley for the first hour or so of being held, but by the time we got the camera out he'd fallen asleep:

I got to hold him for several hours: 5 hours to be exact. I know it was 5 hours because I sat in the chair without hardly moving for the entire time. Here's what I looked like near the end:

Then when they moved him back to the bed, the process looked like this:

It was a great day! We were extremely thankful to God for giving Roscoe the stability to be held and a great experience holding, so that hopefully we'll get to hold frequently in the future as well.