Hold him in our arms

Eli was extubated again today. I think we're going to stick with it, this time. He still has an IV in his left foot, but there's nothing tied into it right now. He still has the feeding tube, and an oxygen feed to his nostrils.

The only drugs still being pumped into him are methadone and valium. These drugs are used for weening him off the Fentanyl and Ketamine he's been on for the last 5 weeks. The latter drugs are opiates, and create a dependency. Without a gentle ween from them, he will go through severe withdrawals. Because he was on those drugs for such a long time, the weening process will take a little longer than usual. We've not been given any timelines, but my understanding is that we should expect roughly a week of diminshing doses before they're gone. The potential upside is that we might have the opportunity to begin teaching Eli how to eat while we go through this, rather than wait for him to head down into regular care. Today, he had good control over sucking on a pacifier, already.

We held him today, finally. He stayed in Tanya's arms for a couple hours while I made the drive from work in Bakersfield today. Then, he slept for over an hour in my arms. We finally have a little baby. A real, live, red-blooded (ok, purple blooded at this stage in his life) human being. More than ever, now we want to take him home and begin showing him the world.