You've Come a Long Way, Baby

We were worried about Charlie last night (Tuesday night). Although Tuesday had been a reasonably quiet day, Charlie had been having "bradycardia" events. They are monitored constantly and they are said to "brady" when their heart rate takes a quick dive. They usually self correct and it is, apparently, not uncommon in premature babies. So, we don't normally worry about them.

However, Charlie was having more episodes than we had seen before and it's a bit hard to stop the demons creeping into your head when, let's remember, what we are talking about is your baby's heartbeat.

It was great to see Dr Marvelous this morning because he has a great way of making us feel better without being dismissive. So, he made some changes to the ventilator settings, talked to his new residents about how far Charlie has come and made us both feel better.

Tonight, reflecting on Charlie, I remembered that I chose not to share the first pictures of him too much at first. I remember not wanting the attention (sympathy?). Then Aly suggested the blog and I used this photo, that was actually taken by Dr Marvelous. For a while, I considered deleting the photo below that was taken after the day of Charlie's bleeding because I didn't want to upset people. He had 2 IVs in his scalp, several blown IVs in his legs and arms and open, seeping wounds all over. Even though he had his PICC line (and a wound in his left arm from a failed PICC line attempt), they don't give blood in a PICC line. To be fair to the nurses, they tidied things up in his bed but I took this photo at a point where they were, quite literally, just focussed on stopping the bleeding.

Tonight, I was looking at the picture below, taken of our darling son in his mother's arms and, although I know we have a long, long way to go and that I shouldn't tempt fate, tonight, I can't help but feel that our Charlie has come a long way in his short life.

(D)