Spring

We did it. We survived winter, somehow managing to avoid catching a cold when everyone in the world had one.

It was quite a feat. Normally, Mo and I swap germs like Typhoid Mary. This year, we were vigilant to avoid passing on anything to Hope, especially since doctors warned she could be hospitalized if she caught a cold. We kept her mostly inside for months and learned a valuable life lesson. Apparently, Mom was on to something with all that talk of hand washing, vitamins, clean living and vegetables. Who knew?

So spring has sprung. Our triumph over the calendar is complete. And, of course, Hope has her first cold.

It began with a few stray coughs. It's evolved into a seven-straight-sneeze symphony that's foul and phlegmatic. She's not sleeping well. The fussbudget is on Fuss Factor Five.

Hope's been out a lot more, so it makes sense that she'd catch a stray something. A few weeks ago, the sniffles and snorts would have sounded serious alarms. We still worry, but realize there's not much to do but ride it out.

There could be some lesson in here about planning your life, excessive caution or letting your guard down. But Mo delights in poking fun of these entries for always ending in lessons.

So perhaps, just this once, a cold is just a cold.

More cords!

I'm swearing off grand conclusions about the state of Pippi. For I fear this blog may be a jinx: Announce she's wonderful and she'll melt down for a week; voice fears of that meltdown and she'll delight for days.

We get it, Pip! You are a mysterious, wily little girl. Stop rubbing it in.

Life has returned to some semblance of normal after the hospital. Hope now sleeps with supplemental oxygen from about 9:30 to 6 or so. We think it's helping, but I've learned my lesson about conclusions.

The oxygen is a simple setup. Then again, so are moonshine stills. Both bear a passing resemblance.

Hope is on a small strip, or cannula, that shoots a 1/2 liter of oxygen into her nose a minute. That's connected by hosing to a gray box about the size of a dorm-room refrigerator. It takes room air, humidifies it with a small amount of water and converts it to pure oxygen. It's a glorified air compressor, not unlike the quarter-suckers at gas stations that fill tires.

Hope's bassinet is about 4 feet from the monstrosity, but she's hooked to it by a 25-foot tube. That's enough to make it from our room, where she still sleeps, to her nursery, where she eats. It's also enough to make it halfway to the back door when Lulu is barking before being snapped back by the end of the line. That's great because I was running out of excuses to shout profanities at 5 a.m.

The point of all this oxygen, of course, is to help Hope over the hump during apnea episodes. It may not eliminate those moments when she stops breathing. But it should give her enough reserves to avoid a meltdown for those 3-8 seconds before she catches herself and resumes breathing.

Of course, that involves more cords.

Her foot is wrapped in a device and connected to a portable pulse oximeter, an electronic device that measures the saturation of oxygen in her blood and heart rate. The oxygen rates tell us when she's having trouble. Normal oxygenation is 95-100 percent. An alarm sounds when rates fall below 88 percent. Or when she shakes her foot. Or when we touch her. Other than that, it's awesome.

Seriously, things have worked fairly well. The cats show an unhealthy interest in our new collection of cords. Lulu thinks the oxygen machine is a rival and won't turn her back to it. Initially, it was scary having a large, humming, explosive device that can be used as a bomb in our bedroom. But hey: I'm the bomb too, and Mo is almost used to me.

Meet Pippi

As expected, the call came early afternoon to return to the hospital. So far, so good, although it was certainly a rough afternoon.

Smart girl, Hope didn't take kindly to nurses sticking tape on her head, wires stuck to her legs or residents barking asinine questions.

As outlined yesterday, Hope is in to monitor how she'll do with small amounts of supplemental oxygen while she sleeps. The thinking is it could relieve her apnea.

The protocol is to start with high levels of oxygen and monitor her effort, or breaths per minute, then slowly wean her off. If all goes well, the small strip that's pumping air into her nose will be weaned completely to room air. Her pediatrician, a gregarious and thorough dude known as Dr. Moleman, thinks the force of air could be enough to loosen her larynx. Tomorrow, Hope likely will be transferred from Pediatric Intensive Care to a regular room in the pediatric ward. There's a chance she could leave late Friday. If not, we proceed with the plan to go home on Saturday.

Only one parent can sleep in the room, so Big Mo curled up in the fold-out couch and I left shortly before 11. Hope was sleeping contently and doing well.

It was a stressful afternoon. Hope cried a lot. But it did pay one big dividend: Hope's new nickname is Pippi for the short, high-pitched pips she's increasingly using to communicate. All credit to Mo. I think it's a keeper.

Back to the hospital early Friday. More details about Pippi and company on Saturday.

Lancelot's larynx

As if we needed a reminder of how unusual life has become, the moment came last night. A nurse spent an hour measuring Hope's head, marked it with red dots from a wax pencil, affixed a dozen electrodes and leads and finished with the piece de resistance -- wrapping her entire head and neck in a gauze mask to keep the wires from crossing.

It was tough to watch. Her little head was covered in wires. The gauze left her face exposed but covered her head and neck. My mind raced: This is freaking wrong, you shouldn't be 3 1/2 months and have a head full of electrodes to measure brain activity. She looked pathetic, but I couldn't decide if she looked more like a Depression-era football player or an onion.

Mo settled the debate.

"Hello my little Lancelot. Have you found your place at the Round Table?"


That was the one moment of levity in an otherwise long night during Hope's long-awaited sleep study. We don't get the results for a week, but we doubt they'll be good.

The study, which kept her in a surreally spooky clinic overnight, used electrodes, belts and other gizmos to measure the quality of Hope's sleep, especially her breathing and apnea. Those are the brief interludes when she stops breathing, catches herself and thinks "Hey! I'm not breathing!"

The fear is Hope's acid reflux is causing a blockage in her throat. Or perhaps her floppy airway, or laryngomalacia, closes during deep sleeps and suspends her breathing. Either way, we need to figure it out. Surgery is in her near future for ear tubes to help her hear, and her apnea could be cured by a surgical tweak during the same operation.

The study was about a mile from Beaumont Hospital in a non-descript office building that appeared otherwise vacant. It was all so strange. We got there about 7:30 p.m., had wait for 10 minutes to be buzzed in, then were led into a basement. We were ushered into a room that sort of looked like a hotel, except one with a camera that moved when you did and a loudspeaker from which unseen nurses and a neurologist could bark commands.

Big Brother was watching.

The study videotaped eight hours of sleeping, as well as brain activity, breaths through Hope's nose and the elevation of her chest and stomach as she inhaled and exhaled. A doctor will evaluate the results and make recommendations.

They might not be pretty. Hospital rules only allowed one parent in the room through the night. I stuck around 90 minutes, then hightailed it home. The ladies returned about 6:30 a.m. It was an especially bad night. Hope woke up about six times, was given supplemental oxygen through her nose because she wasn't breathing well and threw up all her milk about 4 a.m. Mo didn't get any sleep.

We're tempted to make excuses. The place was weird. The heating system was loud. How would you sleep if you were covered in wires and belts and videotaped? It was just one night. Swell questions, we know. But they're not going to change the results.

We have a lot of fears about what's next. We worry the cure may involve more complicated surgery or supplemental oxygen at night. But the sight of Hope covered in a spaghetti-strand tangle of wires reminds us yet again that we're way past the point of fear. We need to buck up and do what's best for her.

Patience for the fussbudget

It's been one of those weeks that I'm sure all parents endure: The lovable little fussbudget whose smiles you cherish learns that she can torture you by denying them.

Atop everything, Hope seems to have a cold. We think. Otherwise, her wake-up-in-the-morning, look-you-in-the-eye and begin wailing uncontrollably routine is just downright cruel.

It's 40 minutes following that moment, after wiggling, bopping, tickling and cooing produce only more tears, that make you realize that talk of unconditional love is hollow without patience.

Neither of us have it in any great supply. Mo has way more. I start with the best intentions. Eventually, "There, there, Sweetie" deteriorates to "What's wrong?" and then "Dagnabbit, Hope!" The worst is this feeling of helplessness, inadequacy and failure to do something as simple as comfort a child. It cuts to your core: Self-worth cultivated for decades evaporates at the realizaion you can't do something that apes have accomplished for millenia. Even Britney can soothe her children (or at least hire someone to.) You are a loser.

The problems lately seem increasingly bad during feedings. Sometimes, we put the nipple to Hope's mouth and she begins to scream. We think it's because her vocal chords are swollen because they're irritated from spitting up so much.


Initially, we thought Hope was developing colic. That now seems unlikely, in part because she seems a bit old to get it now. Also, her episodes don't seem that predictable. We're hoping it's a one-two-three whammy of the inflammation of her floppy, immature windpipe (exacerbated by reflux) and a run-of-the-mill cold. Unfortunately, cold medicines are too dangerous, so we got the green-light today to increase the dose of Prevacid to reduce the acids that discomfort her. The medicine doesn't prevent spitting up. It neutralizes her stomach acids that irritate her when she spits up.



Hopefully, that will work. Until then, it's more waiting, worrying and mental pretzels, trying to shove fear into the crevices of your brain and assuring yourself this isn't the start of the boogie-woogie flu or Guinea Worm Disease.


Mo and I hashed out our fears and frustrations yesterday. It was a tough chat, admitting your failures and acknowledging that sometimes we feel completely over our heads. I beated my breasts in agony for 40 minutes. Mo summed up our charge: "It's patience. We need to learn some. That's all there is to it." So we will. Pronto.

We wait

Hope has a big heart. It sounds like swell news and something she comes about honestly -- Mo is nothing if not magnanimous -- but it's probably not.

We returned today to the cardiologist for a follow-up appointment. Of the issues that send Hope once a week to various specialists, her heart defects are the ones that terrify us. We fill notebooks cataloguing her daily feeds and weight, debate the quality of her poop and sleep for hours and absolutely delight discussing her latest smiles, farts and grimaces. But we barely talk about her heart issues because they're that scary.

Or maybe they aren't.

As we learned six weeks ago, Hope has an abnormally thick left ventricle. That's the main pumping chamber of the four that comprise her heart. It's on the mild side of big -- we're talking perhaps 5 millimeters compared to 3 -- but it's definitely measuring larger since her birth. Presumably, that's from overuse. Like a muscle, the heart grows bigger when it's asked to do more. It shouldn't have to do all that much for a little girl who turned 3 months old today.

Oddly enough, Hope's heart appears to be working well. Her blood pressures indicate it's doing a bang-up job distributing blood through her body. The flow through her heart seems fine as well. And the cardiologist today ruled out aortic coarctation, a pinching of a valve like a garden hose that causes blood to flow with increased velocity -- and worried us the most just two months ago.

So, like a lot in life and medicine, we're left with an unknown that's only resolved with time.

If her heart is growing thicker, it appears to be doing it on its own. There's no blockage making it work harder. The tissue itself could be abnormal, a very serious condition known as cardiomyopathy. We don't know now. This could go away, be a lifetime condition managed -- but not fixed -- by medicine, or it could eventually prove fatal.

So we wait.

The unknown is frightening. We're not good at it. But there are worse outcomes. The thickening isn't severe enough to rush us back to the cardiologist soon. We have a follow-up appointment in three months. We left feeling OK. The morning was stressful -- Hope melted down during an echocardiogram, EKG and blood-pressure screenings -- but our big, unspoken fears weren't realized. The tests didn't find more problems to require immediate surgery.

Driving home, we talked about the last few months and years. I launched into an empassioned diatribe of gobbledygook about how this is the defining moment of our lives. It sounded awesome for about 40 seconds. Then, as is my wont, it quickly made no sense.

Mo cut me off: "If anything, this just teaches me once again that we need to savor every day like the gift it is." She's right, of course. I'd be tempted to say she has a big heart if I didn't just learn that isn't always a good thing.

'That's why it's a syndrome'

When we learned Hope had a syndrome, my reaction was typically naive: "As long as she's healthy, I'm OK." Mo was quick to call me out as a dunderhead. "Kids with syndromes aren't healthy. That's why it's a syndrome."

Unfortunately, she's right. There's a gazillion biological explanations to back her up, but kids with syndromes usually have health issues -- or else they wouldn't have syndromes. That's not to say they won't get stable or live healthy lives. They do. But it's sometimes a lot of work and a lot of hassles to get there.

That lesson was reinforced today with Mo's visit to Hope's ear-nose-and-throat specialist. We were hoping he'd green-light surgery for tubes in her ears to help her hear. Her defect is caused primarily by tiny canals, which in part are caused because she herself is so small. The issue is beginning to acquire real urgency. Hope is 3 months old on Wednesday. These are critical months for her development. If she can't hear, she learns slower, talks later and bonds less with us.

Of course, there's a delay. The ENT dude, who is regarded as one of the best in Michigan, first wants to evaluate Hope's sleeping because we suspect apnea. Sometimes, she briefly stops breathing while snoozing, catches herself, then breathes again. It's fairly common among tots. But Hope's could be caused by her floppy larynx, or laryngomalacia. Essentially, the elasticity of the windpipe may cause it to close when she inhales. If it's a severe enough case, it might require minor surgery to nip and tuck her larynx into shape. And since no one likes putting 5-pounders under anesthesia more than necessary, the thinking is he'd do both at once. But first, we need to take Hope into the hospital for an overnight stay to evaluate the extent of her apnea.

Simple? It gets complicated.

The ENT took a peek at Hope's throat and found it is inflamed. That's because food is coming back up her throat because she has a slight hernia. When it does, the acids in the food irritate her throat. That makes it uncomfortable to eat. So she eats less. That slows weight gain for a child with a syndrome where it's always difficult, keeping her -- and her ear canals --tiny. So there's a convoluted line from spitting up to hearing.

Phew. I'm exhausted even typing that sentence.

The next step is a sleep study to determine the extent of the apnea. In a few weeks, we'll spend another night at Beaumont Hospital for more wires and blinking lights. Then presumably she could have surgery in March for the tubes and whatever else.

On a happier note, Big Mo has joined the blogging brigade, joining the Michigan Moms blog on our newspaper's Web site. Check it out. Poor Hopey. It's a good thing this Internet fad will never last. Otherwise, she'd really have it in for us one day.

Snow day

In southeast Michigan, the media call days like today "chaos." In Maine, where I grew up, they call it another Sunday.

We awoke today to about 6-7 inches of snow. In many parts of Michigan, that's no big deal. Here, we get one of these doozies about once or twice a year and everyone goes kookoo. I turned on the TV news this morning and saw a reporter run after a woman at a gas station, stick a microphone in her face and demand, "Where is your hat?"

It's a fair question, I guess, because it's hard not to get a bit giddy on days like today. After all these years, big snows still feel like an event -- a communal pause from the humdrum and invitation to do something different. The roads are impassable, schools are closed, so why not build snow tunnels that are one good gust away from suffocating you, be on the wrong end of whitewashes in junior high or kill the day drinking skunk brew in college?

So I skipped out of bed today, excited by the possibilities. I looked out the window, contemplated the still of the morning and thought, "Oh yeah, we're not doing anything. We're staying inside again."

It's not even officially winter, and cabin fever is setting in. As detailed earlier, Hope's tracheomalacia makes it imperative she avoid catching colds, so we're hermits until spring. We may need some hobbies -- and fast. We skipped another holiday get-together this weekend and had to shoo Mo's sister, Molly, away because she has a sore throat. That left the following as the highlights of the weekend: (1) Goo gooing with Hope (2) Eating a meatball sub and (3) Scoring two consecutive Bingos at Scrabble ("Genitals" and "Paginate.")

It might be easier if Hope had an outstanding weekend, but she didn't. She's had a tickle in her throat the past few days. Her breathing has sounded terrible. The Prevacid has yet to kick in and the reflux through her nose has come in torrents. Falling asleep seems difficult. Often, she'll doze for about 10 minutes, then awake screaming.

Hopefully, she'll kick whatever it is soon. She's had a better evening than afternoon; she's getting her extra-strength, cold aversion Synagis shot tomorrow and her name, after all, is Hope.

But it's still cause for anxiety. And tough lessons. I learned this one the other day: No matter the hour, the duration of your daughter's tears, how many times you've wondered whether you should call the pediatrician or how logical the sentiment can seem, never -- never, ever, never -- say something dumb like, "Y'know, sometimes, I don't like this very much." It seemed like an honest assessment. I was worried sick and had heard other guys say far worse (a friend described the first 2 months with a newborn as "100 times the work of a puppy and half the rewards.")

Mo didn't want to hear it. And why should she? Whatever anxieties I have, she bears fifty fold. She's taking a six-month leave of absence from work, so this is her life 24-7. I'm a few weeks into hunkering down and already jawjacking. She's an old pro, having been ordered on bed rest at the beginning of October. That's three months of nothing. Such solitude may suit Thoreau, but it's driving Mo bonkers. She has a few house guests, 1-2 a week, but we try regulate them to keep germs at bay. It's a week before Christmas and the only shopping we've done is online.

"It's all so isolating," Mo said. "I get depressed sometimes. But Hope is worth it. I'm sooo happy she's home, so what's the alternative?"

We both know it. When Hope was born, we set Christmas as a goal for taking her to the hospital. We beat it by a month. We're not keen on returning, so we need to hunker down, figure this out and maybe take up macrame or decoupage.

Bushed

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We bought a garage door the other day. Once adorned with retro eagles that Mo insisted I remove when we moved in, it broke every three months. My parents taught me how to deal with these problems: Ignore them until you can't possibly anymore, then apply the cheapest fix and forget it until it breaks again.

After years of adhering to the tradition of turning small problems into expensive ones, we followed the door's lead and broke down. Returning home from work, I was eager to see it.

I made it about three steps into the garage when Mo yelled at me through the side door.

"What are you doing?" she barked. "Get in here! I need a break."

That's life now. Five minutes looking at a door is wasted time. I'm typing with two fingers and trying to coax Hope back asleep. Mo is napping. She's making up for last night Afflicted with what my father-in-law delicately calls "the creeping cruds," I decided I couldn't help with Hope's feeds and needed a bubble-bath and nine hours' sleep to slay whatever ailed me.

Call it what you like. I consider it a valiant sacrifice to shield my daughter from germs that had nothing to do with eating six slices of pizza in 10 minutes.

Like all new parents, we knew this would be exhausting but weren't prepared for how much. From afar, it shouldn't seem so hard: You burp, feed, fuss, coo; change a few diapers, apply some creams now and again and -- voila! -- wile away the next three hours completing jigsaw puzzles or online enrichment courses.

Of course, it's all-consuming and unrelenting. I'm bushed. Mo's bushed. We're learning that raising a child with unique challenges is probably like raising a healthy one but magnified. It starts with the doctors: In addition to a pediatrician, Hope sees a cardiologist, audiologist, geneticist and physical therapist. And the spit-ups and rashes that would normally be scary are petrifying. Mo is now navigating the maze of health care and HMOs. We'd like to add a gastrointestinal specialist to the list to evaluate Hope and address her spit-ups. It's supposed to be standard for CdLS kids. Our network has pediatric GI docs. The next opening is May.

But big deal. It's work. What great in life isn't? And Hope's doing good, home now for three weeks and notching small landmarks. We don't panic anymore when we don't hear her for 3 minutes. She's becoming more emotive every day, sticking out her tongue, fixing her stares and flashing dimples like she was at the county fair. We're not counting her breaths anymore. But we are counting our blessings.

The Natural

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It was 2:30 in the morning. I was trying to be a hero. I confirmed I'm not.

"C'mon, Hope!" I snapped, the dribbles of milk squirting out the sides of her mouth; the inconsolable tears complementing her wails. She was one hour into a two-hour fit. "Gimme a break! You can't be this upset! Stop exaggerating!"

I love my daughter like crazy. At that point, I'm ashamed to admit I didn't like her very much. I tried everything. Cooing. Oohing. Ahhing. Patting and cajoling. Nothing worked. Deep in the night, fighting sleep, I felt like a failure.

I volunteered for an extra feeding shift to help Mo get a solid six hours. Instead, the dog started barking, the cats were whining and Hope wouldn't stop crying. Mo awoke to me ordering the dog to "GET!" No one was happy. It was frightening because it confirmed a few things that are tough to admit. My little girl's beauty won't magically cure my grouchiness. And my parenting skills need some work.

Somehow, I'd deluded myself into thinking that being a funny uncle and cool guy to drink beer with would make me a great Dad. When I fantasized about fatherhood, I was always giving poignant advice, making hilarious fart noises and letting the kid win at Candyland. The daydreams didn't involve techniques to help her pass gas or neck angles to ease her wheezy breathing.

Feedings are huge to us. Hope isn't going gangbusters with weight gain. She's still about 4 pounds, 2 ounces. So we need to wake her every three hours to try to force a bit more food down her grape-sized stomach.

Feeding is a major pain with CdLS kids. Some can never coordinate drinking from a bottle and need to have tubes surgically implanted to their stomachs.

So the fact that Hope can figure out this breathe-suck-swallow trifecta is encouraging, but some days are better than others. Sometimes, she sucks it down like a champ, falls asleep on my shoulder and listens to my rambling life lessons ("The Detroit Tigers have significant holes in 2008." "Kitties are furry and fun to pet.") Other times, it's a struggle. She cries like crazy when I pick her up, kicks it up a notch when I change her diaper, then goes into full-on "Don't Mess with Me, Buster" mode when I feed her. She'll straighten her legs, try to wiggle away, cry some more and shoot me bad-juju, hoodoo voodoo evil eyes. A good portion of the milk from the bottle dribbles out her mouth. She'll forget to breathe and turn blue or spit up through her nose. She'll fall asleep mid-feed or get a gas bubble stuck in her stomach that drives her batty.

There are times, blurred by sleep deprivation, that I conclude, "I have no idea what I'm doing. My daughter is only a month old and already hates me."

Mo is much better. It can still be a challenge, but she is adept at picking up on Hope's cues, reading her body language and anticipating her needs. So far, I've tried to compensate for my lack of innate skills by volunteering for lots of errands. But I realize that Hope doesn't care how many times I go to Kroger, fix the garage door or update the blog.

It's a blow to the ego, but I have to conclude I'm just not a natural at this stuff. So I woke up Sunday morning and did something else that doesn't come naturally.

"Hey, I feel terrible about last night," I told Mo. "You're good at feeding her. Maybe you could help me improve."

Baby Fog

Forgive us for our recent lack of insight or updates. We've hit that point in the parallel universe of new parenthood when we have oodles to discuss -- and worry about -- among ourselves, but precious little to report to the outside world.

I thought about posting updates this weekend, but realized my big news amounted to stuff like, "Maureen finally changed out of her pajamas today" or "I've almost come up with a second verse to my hit feeding song, 'You Gotta Work it to Burp It.'"

Pathetic isn't it? You'd think those lyrics would just flow.

I returned to work for good today, Everyone was curious. I was surprised how little I had to say. Hope is doing what she should. She eats, cries, farts, poops, burps, sleeps and doesn't seem to mind terribly when our dog, Lulu, walks past and licks her head. That's a three-hour cycle that repeats, 24-7. Occasionally, Hope will stare at her mobile in big-eyed wonder or Lulu will mix it up by licking her feet. But for the most part, the cry-eat-sleep cycle prevails.

There shouldn't be much more to say, but, I found myself calling Mo every two hours today demanding answers: Did she poop? Describe its consistency, mass and color in vivid detail. Any spit-ups through her nose? Fresh or digested? Would you trust generic gas drops?

So that's it how it is now. Any semi-intelligent conversations we once had have faded into what Mo calls the Baby Fog and I call Fussing with the Fussbudget. Mo has left the house three times in 11 days, including once today to place a can in the recycling bin. I have been typing with one finger for 20 minutes because there is a baby on my chest and I'm counting breaths per minute (44.)

I got home about 7:30. We tried the normal, "Hey, any interesting stories today?" blather, but neither of us could fake it. Within two minutes, we were running to the Internet in search of answers for a mysterious pink spot on Hope's forehead and deciding whether three consecutive dry diapers constitute constipation.

Exhausted bliss

A few hours ago, I held my daughter. The doorbell rang. I stood up, cradled her in my arms, walked 10 feet and answered it.

Mundane? Sure. Amazing? Quite.

It happens every day, but it's profound beyond words. Our baby is home.

For the first time in 16 days, Hope Beatrice isn't connected to four sticky wires. There are no screens to monitor her heartbeat, respirations and oxygen levels. We have no tests tomorrow. There are no nurses telling us when we can bathe or weigh our child. We can pick her up and move beyond the five feet of wire that anchored Hope to her crib.

The moment Mo has prayed for since Memorial Day came about 3:15 p.m. There were no grand pronouncements, parades or quizzes. The doctors wished us well, gave us Hope's discharge papers and sent us on our worried ride home.

It's bliss, absolutely and truly, and moving in ways that I'm sure I'll be better able to capture tomorrow. Now, words fail me. We're humbled, awed, terrified, overjoyed, thrilled, and quite exhausted.

Mo is in the nursery, trying to soothe her baby. I'm on the couch envying my dog, who is asleep under the coffee table, no doubt dreaming about eating toilet paper. My brother and sister, Steve and Beth, are in from the East Coast, droopy-eyed settled comfortably in their happy pants.

It's been a long, nerve-wracking, rewarding and blessed day, and I'm sure a long night will follow. We're on our own now. Our baby is home. We can barely put one foot in front of another.

I'm in no shape for profundities, but I wanted to post because an update because I know a lot of you are curious and knocked on wood when a dork on the Internet asked you to. We're truly thankful for this amazing network of love, support, good will and prayers that extends from Singapore (Hi Pam!) to Maine.

Hopefully, this is the end of a crisis and start of a journey. Things won't be easy, but now, they're exactly as they should be. We couldn't be happier. Or sleepier.