It rained today.

Today was Mary Jane’s first day back at work. This was something we knew going in, would be hard. What we didn’t know was that Parker was going to throw a wrench in the works and make things a little harder.
I was sitting at my desk working through something in Isaiah when Mary Jane called. It was ironic because it was raining outside and I had just paused to look out the window and enjoy the rain. I love a rainy fall day. Not grey skies for weeks fall day, nor a hurricane, floods are destroying homes sort of fall day, but a regular steady stream of rain, look at the fall colors on the trees sort of day. As I looked out the window it looked like one of those sorts of days.
But then Mary Jane called and told me to get to the hospital. Parker was having some troubles. What were the troubles…well, honestly we still don’t know for sure, but here is how the story goes.
The other day we (Mary Jane, I, and some of the nurses) were joking about how easy the girls had become as patients for the nurses. They were officially designated as “feeder growers” (a way of saying they are basically just…feeding and growing them). The next morning (Monday morning) we got a call from the nurse on duty at about 6:30 right when I was heading out the door and Mary Jane was getting ready to get in the shower. She was just giving us a heads up that Parker was a little funny. Her tummy was big and slightly firm. This raises certain red flags in the minds of neonatal medical professionals, namely necrotizing entercolitis (nec). They did an x-ray and she looked okay, she pooped and seemed softer but still a little big. The rest of the day Parker seemed fine.
This morning however was more of the same. When the doctors came by to do rounds, they were concerned because her stomach was still big and she seemed more lethargic then her usual feisty Parker self (on a side note that is exactly how the Dr. phrased it to me. He said she didn’t seem like her usual feisty self. It made me happy that he used the term feisty…because it is one of dad’s official descriptors for Parker) and her color was not looking the best. It was decided to do another x-ray and this time to do a bunch of labs and cultures to look for any signs of an infection.
Just the process of doing the labs was a bit scary. Nec is the neonatal world’s version of the dreaded “C” word (cancer). And as many of you may remember our nephew Hunter died of Nec two years ago. So even doing tests looking for it is a little like doing a biopsy on something just a couple years after a loved one died of cancer.
As scary as this was for me, it was worse for Mary Jane, who was upstairs back at work. She wanted me there in the room, and…I wanted to be there. They ran the tests and didn’t find anything. Which leaves us not at square one, but more like square 1.1. The doctors are going to continue with Parker’s regular care (they had briefly suspended her feeds during this) but are now watching her like a hawk. Any continued signs of distress will likely convince them to put her on a course of antibiotics. This is something we would all prefer not to do, but will do in a heartbeat if it looks like that is what she needs.
So it rained some today. If I had my way we wouldn’t have any of these types of rainy days. But that’s not the way life works. The other day I found myself in a long conversation with one of the nurses about this. This was probably about a week ago. I don’t remember exactly how we got to this topic; conversations just go to these places. But she said something to the effect that she was surprised there were so many pastors in the NICU (our neighbor at the time is a pastor and his family). We talked about how it rains on everyone. We talked about the wise man who built his house upon the rock… A story she was vaguely familiar with. It’s the parable Jesus tells where the wise man builds his house upon the rock while the foolish man builds his upon the sand. When the rains come, the house on the sand collapses, while the house on the rock remains strong. A lot of people seem to miss the fact that the rain comes to both groups of people. Jesus’ parable is not meant to teach that those who “build” their house on him will be without troubles. No, the rains are coming either way, but the man whose house is “built” on Him finds himself still standing in the wake of the rain.

Emma Jane was worried for her sister

But at the end of the day Parker was starting to look better