Day Twelve

Esa passed another breathing test in the morning!! Again, it wasn't ideal, but it was a pass so the doctors decided to extubate (take out his breathing tube).
Art was able to go to a sacrament meeting from 10:30 to 11 that they held at the hospital. They made the meeting shorter in order to meet the needs of the parents and patients, which was really nice. He saw that the general primary president for the LDS church Rosemary M. Wixom was at the sacrament meeting, which was an obvious place for her to be, I thought. The parents and the kids can use every bit of support and love that they can get. I know the hospital also holds services for other faiths as well, which is so awesome, I thought.
When he got back they had extubated and Esa was fitted with a CPAP (a tube gives a constant flow of pressure through the nose to help add pressure to the lungs). Esa could finally make noise when he cried, something that a lot of babies can't do for a couple days after being extubated. Esa was going through a tough transition because he was working harder to breath and was getting less sedative (in order to be more in control of his breathing), so he was struggling still with withdrawals. He would begin to desat(basically not getting enough oxygen, breathing too fast, hight heart rate, etc) a couple times when he got really upset. I think the cpap machine was actually less comfortable than the ventilator. His nose was all scrunched up and they held the machine on his face with velcro attached to this hat that they put as tight as they could on his head. It was progress, though, so we couldn't complain! Esa was pretty uncomfortable, though.

Art got to hold him a lot that morning. Actually hold him, with no mountain of pillows, just his little blanket. Best Father's day gift ever. I came and got to hold him, too, in the afternoon for a few minutes, it was so wonderful. We couldn't move once he was in our arms, though, because the machine kept coming apart every time he moved his head or wiggled, but it was one step closer to getting to really snuggle.
I had decided to take the boys to church that day to give them something normal and fun that they loved in their routine. I was hesitant to do that because I didn't want them to get sick from all of the kids that they would be coming into contact with. I figured that if I was going to take them at all during Esa's stay in the hospital now would be a good time because if they did get something they would most likely be over it before Esa came home. We didn't stay for very long at the hospital. We came up in time for dinner and with time to play a bit in the play room. The boys were so tired that they got a little crazy, but they were still listening pretty well. Art stayed(and got a sleep room) and I went home again with the boys and my mom because he had Monday off.