Mercy Abounds

I never cease to be amazed at God's mercy to us. The list of tangible mercies which go along with this experience is too long to list. What I present here is partial at best.
-Mary Jane got pregnant
-We got a local vicarage
-We're at Salem specifically (they really have been such a help during all this)
-They are girls (girls have a significantly better chance of pulling through this type of experience)
-After the water broke the girls stayed in for over 48 hours giving steroids a chance to do their thing on the lungs.
-We're at St. Louis Children's NICU with its staff of nurses and doctors
-Their PDA ligations went smoothly
-They have not, thus far, developed an infection
-They are weaning off of oxygen (still on...but heading in the right direction)
-They have not had any major head bleeds
-They are in the same room
-They are growing
-They are learning to eat, and not just be fed through an NG tube
-They are wearing clothes
-They are four pounds
-and oh yeah...there is this...

Those, my friends, are open air cribs. That's right....these girls are in CRIBS!!!! C R I B S!!!

We said goodbye to the giraffes. We sent them back to their watering hole deep in the recesses of the hospital. And said HELLO to a little piece of normalcy.

Are we excited? Is the pope Catholic? Of course we're excited.

Sure they need to have 15 layers of clothes on, but then so do researchers living in Antarctica so....you know...it's normal some where.

Now why doesn't dad look excited in this picture? Well that would be because he's exhausted and falling asleep. There's nothing like putting a snugly baby on your chest. The moment you do WHAM you start falling asleep. It's like babies emit some type of aura that takes all your stress momentarily away and boom. The exhaustion catches up to you and you think "...." because you can't think of anything else, because you're falling asleep. So no, dad doesn't look excited here, but know that while he is exhausted it is an excited exhaustion.

"Dear Lord, please do not let them have my big shnozola. Amen"

um...why are the extra blankets on that side? Well...like I said...tired