Still chuggin'!!

27-hours later and Max is still on CPAP!!! Not only that, but I just called to find out his blood gas tonight was 7.44 and 46. That may be Greek to a lot of people...but that spells "phenomenal" for Maxwell!! I have not heard just yet, but the doctors will almost certainly make a change to his settings based on those numbers. I can remember like it was yesterday when Max's gases were more like a pH of 7.25 and a CO2 of 75. Thank-you Lord!! This is without a doubt the first time in my life where I have prayed for something so hard, cried when there were SO many setbacks, argued with God on so many occasions, and now to have a feeling of utter joy for the healing He has performed. I feel like I could write a Psalm right now. Max's oxygen needs are up a little bit - about 35% or so from the lower 30s yesterday. This is not a big concern considering the amount of trauma he has been through in the last day or so. Please continue to pray with us for strength and endurance for Max. We would love to see the vent go away, to have hope again that maybe Max doesn't need to have a trake. We have been praying for God to make a pathway very clear so that we can move ahead, trake or no trake, feeling that it was God's plan. We are hopeful that this is God saying, "give Max a shot...I think he might just surprise you all!!"

Wes had a good day as well. One of the doctors that saw him this morning did decide to stop the weans. We are a little frustrated by this, because the day before, one of the docs wanted to increase his weans to 4-hours twice a day, now we are back to nothing. This is really one of the very few areas where there seems to be a lot of conflicting schools of though from the docs. Some say to give the kids a shot to prove themselves, others say if the kids need CPAP support, then they need CPAP support. I feel like Wes deserves at least an hour or two a day. He has proven that he can do it, and he is so much more happy without the CPAP, if even for a fleeting moment. Wes deserves what happiness he can muster.

Max's respiratory therapist tonight last saw the boys the night they were born. She said she can remember that night very clearly. She could not stop talking about how amazing they look, how big they have grown, and how cute they are. God really used her to remind me of how much we have to be thankful for. It has not been a short road, but the concerns of today are not at all what they were 118-days ago.

I wanted to share another amazing thing that happened in our lives recently. Marie Clark, a professional photographer, approached us about doing a photo shoot with the boys in the NICU. A few weeks ago, Marie came to the NICU, donned a Big Bird yellow gown and latex gloves, wiped all of her camera gear down so as to not transfer any foreign bacteria, and just started snapping pictures. I was thinking all of the pictures were going to look goofy because of the setting and the stupid gowns and gloves, but her artistic eye and God given ability transformed these still images into something that for us is just breathtaking. I have included a few of the pictures below, but she has more than 230 images from the shoot at the following site (you do need to create an account, but it is really one of the few places to store this many high quality photos):

http://www.pictage.com/client/event.do?event=690798&emailFlag=true

Marie has a webiste that showcases some of her other work as well:

http://www.mclarkphotography.com/