Jake at Home

Well, its great to have the lil guy at home. Yesterday brought my personal favorite moment to the surgery experience, the cutting off of the hospital band that signifies that I am with Jake. Cathartic yes, and another item for his scrapbook. Jake is taking a bunch of various meds and its hard to keep them all straight let alone get him to drink them all. He is in good spirits and happy to be home for the most part. Bringing him home has the expected challenges as he requires extra delicate handling and we can't really put him down on the play mat etc. I am happy the boys can see each other again and hopefully this is nice for Jake and a sign that he is returning back to all things familiar. Yesterday evening, Sam gave Jake a bath and it was a tough task given that we can't get his wound wet but only like mothers can Sam found a way to even wash his small bang area just in front of the wound. I, like only fathers can, found a way to break part of his crib when we attempted to adjust the height. No need to fret is should be a minor repair. We created the best simulation possible to the hospital bed for Jake complete with foot pillow and raised area for his head. After his nightime bottle, we got Jake to sleep actually pretty easily which is tough because you can only hold him a certain way giving his head support and it is a difficult transition to lower him into the crib. Most of the time it takes two tries when he is sleeping to place him to bed without waking him up.

Then came the some of the difficult moments of the evening. Upon waking up in his crib, Jake now belts out a new cry that is heartbreaking. It is bloodcurling and Sam and I are lucky we didn't trip over each other trying to get to him as fast as possible. He does calm down quickly once in our arms but it is trying to say the least. We were up every few hours with him with the toughest stretch from 12-3 when we couldn't get him to fall asleep. We had to hear that cry multiple times and I hope we can relieve him of this panic/pain etc so that can end. This morning, Jake was calm and pretty happy once he ate. I got a giggle out of him while he ate prunes which was great to see. Hopefully he will have a good day and we'll see how he handles tonight.