Nice and boring

Woody's sixteenth day is starting out with him quite stable and with good news from the doctors. His general haze in the lungs is clearing, with the doctor pronouncing it "way better." His blood gases are good, his oxygen needs are decreasing, and he is handling the tiny bits of milk they are feeding him (and producing the, uh, proper waste products).

The arterial line in the belly button is coming out later today, and they'll have to come up with a new place to pull blood samples after that, but I don't consider it a very big deal. I know it's a lot less exciting than worrying about some potentially life-threatening complication, but I'd rather be bored than excited any day.

Upon reflection, it's been about three weeks where I've not been immediately worried about either Maggie or Woody. I got back from seeing Auntie Val's graduation and immediately was taking Maggie to the hospital with what we thought was severe heartburn. It wasn't until early in the morning, after I had been up for about 24 hours straight, that I realized that Maggie wasn't just going to get sent home from the emergency room. And later that day we were told that she wasn't leaving the hospital until we had a kid.

Here we are and we're parents and yet not really feeling like parents yet. Maggie and I still don't own any baby stuff, aren't able to even really think about bringing Woody home anytime soon, and haven't even been able to hold him. But if we keep up the boring improvement, it should happen fairly soon.