Dad's turn

Ok, it's dad's turn to give Jenn a break. First, the medical update: his chest x-ray this morning looked better as did his CBC. Both showed that his body is fighting the pneumonia and he is doing better. At the same time, his blood pressure was low so they gave him some dopamine and lowered the ventilator settings. They'll take a closer look at his liver today since it looked a little big on the x-ray the other day- "a simple blood test" (sounds like an alavert commercial) and an ultrasound. Then, they'll try weaning him off the ventilator more aggressively today. They are concerned about BPD- bronchopulmonary dysplasia or something or other, and the long term effect the ventilator will have on his lung development.

More personally, today when I went to look at him, he was struggling to open his eyes, and I just felt that he was having a "why me, God?" moment, and that he really needed to rely on our strength, love, support and prayers. I realize it may sound silly, and it's total conjecture, but I don't really think of him as just being this little baby. I don't know when the spirit enters the body and I don't know how much spiritual awareness babies have (since they outwardly don't seem to have any awareness at all of anything except behavioral responses to stimuli). But, I talk to Isaac and I pray for Isaac as if he is a spirit within his body, yet still retaining his spiritual awareness and thus capable of making decisions and being aware. Two weeks ago I blessed him that he would be able to choose whether to live or die- that he could live if he wanted it enough. I haven't thought much about it in the past two weeks, but today I felt like he was questioning whether it was all worth it. I encouraged him and told him that it was totally worth it. He has a mom and a dad who will love him, play with him and teach him. He has an awesome big brother, and we all want him to come into our family. Afterwards, I felt that he had been strengthened- he calmed down, closed his eyes and peacefully rested for the next hour or so while I "held" his hand (his fingers were grasping my finger, but can't even get halfway around!). I'm so proud of him, how he's fighting for his life, and for giving the nurses hell when they bug him!

He's our little champ who has already taught us so much, and I'm confident that he will finally begin moving forward after having almost two weeks of constant backsliding. Actually, after encouraging him, I told him it's time to stop messing around and to show these nurses what some old-fashioned Finnish sisu will do! Go, Isaac, go!

Speaking of "Isaac", the way we picked the name was thusly: We couldn't decide on a name and "Simon" had fizzled, so two hours before we had to submit the birth certificate information on day 10, we prayed for our son. We said we'd pray for him by name and we'll see what happens. We prayed "Bless our little son Jacob." Nothing. "Bless our little son Simon." Nothing. "Bless our little son Isaac." We both knew instantly that this was our little Isaac. For us, it was not only a name, but a confirmation and lifelong reminder of the goodness of God and of what we already knew- that like Abraham's Isaac, our little Isaac would be spared.

I want to be clear here, however. I've thought often of the strange position I find myself in- I KNEW from the day Jenn's water broke that God would spare my son. There's absolutely no human reason why God should spare my son yet take another (which has happened during our time in the NICU). God's goodness, nor my belief in it, does not depend on human outcomes or human perceptions of outcomes. That first day of utter shock and having your guts ripped out ended in complete and utter submission to God- or perhaps more accurately, the realization and acceptance of my complete and utter dependance on God. For a brief moment in my life, I accepted that God's love for me requires Him to provide me what is in my best interests spiritually and eternally regardless of my attitude towards it. Instead of wanting to change what God was going to do anyway, I embraced His will and all that it would mean- unknowns and all. Only after that was it revealed to me that our son would be spared. Isaac is truly a gift in every sense, but the goodness of God was revealed not through the sparing of Isaac, but through the circumstances by which he came to us.