NICU update - Please pray for my baby

As I sit here in the hospital after being here since Wednesday I find myself having a really hard time writing about this.  I have tried almost daily to blog about what has been going on and I either eat or crawl up on the hospital bed and wait til I go in NICU to see Brooks again.  I am having a really hard time today dealing with all of this.  It seems my baby boy makes two steps forward and then we go in and its one step back again.  I feel so much guilt not being able to put my big boy to bed at night and be with him through out the day. But then I feel guilty if I am not here at the hospital in fear I will miss something.  My parents have been so helpful in keeping Chance when we are here.  It doesn't take the guilt away that I feel. Doug and my mom have been taking turns staying here at the hospital with me and having Chance at night.  We are all trying to make this process as easy as we can for Chance.  He just has a hard time understanding it all. None of us expected any of this to happen with Brooks.  Last night I went home and laid with Chance til he went to sleep and then I came back to stay at the hospital.  Today I went home around nap time and read books and ate lunch with Chance until he fell asleep then I rushed back to hopefully feed Brooks his bottle and found out that we have to slow down the bottle feedings because his stats were going down, meaning we cant rush things.  Maybe I should explain what has been going on since he went into NICU Wednesday night. 

 Playing on the playground at the hospital.  He is growing up so fast. 

Wednesday: They admitted him to NICU for lung complications.  His breathing was very fast as if he couldn't catch his breath.  They put him on oxygen and started IV with antibiotics in case of infection.  As this point we were not sure what was going on until all the x rays and blood cultures came back.

Thursday: At this point he is still on oxygen (high levels) and very fragile.  I wasn't even able to hold him all day as if he moved his respiratory levels they were measuring were not good.  The dr still trying to rule out infection but also he had fluid on his lungs. 

Friday: We find out they think he has very immature lungs and it will just take time to heal - later in the afternoon they gave Brooks what is called surfactant (our lungs naturally produce this but Brooks needed more to get his lungs to work the right way).  This worked immediately clearing up his lungs.  His stats started to improve and later in the evening with all the tubes attached the dr finally let me hold my sweet baby.  During these 3 days Brooks is being fed through a tube and is getting what he needs through the IV. 

Saturday: A different dr comes in that morning and tells us the x ray shows his collapsed lung is so much better.  Collapsed Lung!!?  No one has told us this.  We started asking questions and apparently it was a partial collapsed left lung.  I went in to see him about every 2 hours and at feedings.  I am staying in the hospital as a guest.  They slowly started to bring Brooks off his oxygen and by Sunday morning he was down to room air.  His stats continued to stabilize and today we started to bottle feed.  He took his first bottle at 11 and did so well.  At his 2nd feeding he wasn't able to get as much down as he was before and at this point his stats had started to decline.  They increased the oxygen pressure and we have to go back and forth with bottle to tube feeding until he can handle the changes. 

Here I sit helpless in so many ways.  I cant do anything to help my sweet baby in NICU except love him and talk to him as he lays there and I cant do much for my sweet Chance who also needs his mom and dad at home.  We go back in to feed Brooks at 8.  If you are reading this blog I ask that you pray for our family.  Pray that Brooks will get stronger and stronger and we can take him home soon.  I ask you to pray for Chance and allow him to know that his mommy and daddy love him and we all hope to be home soon as a family of 4.  I think he is doing much better than I am with all this.  He is in good hands with my parents.  I ask that you pray for healing, patience and guidance during this hard time.  I know God is in control and he is taking care of all of us. 

Thank you for your prayers.  I will continue to update as much as I can.