10.2.10 (part 2)

The perfect way to end the day would have been right then, at 5:15 a.m. We had no idea what was in store for the rest of the day.

By 8:30, Kevin's parents had made it back in town and to the hospital to see our precious boys, by 9, my dad was there too. By 2:30, we had the OU/TX game on, Kevin had taken a nap, and I was recovering in my room, while the twins were in the NICU.

Kevin brought our older boys up to the hospital so they could see their new brothers. My mom prepared them for some disappointment by telling them they wouldn't be able to hold the babies. Davis was sad, but he asked, "Mommy gets to hold them though, right?" My mom answered his question by telling him that even I couldn't hold the babies yet. He was really surprised, but felt better that he wasn't the only one.

Both Davis and Ronin laid with me in my bed for a few minutes, and checked out everything that was in my room while Kevin went back to look at the babies with his parents. The phone to the hospital room rang, it was the pediatrician, and he told me he was coming to my room to talk to me. I asked my mom to take the boys out, and tell Kevin to come in.

The doctor turned the volume on the TV completely off. Kevin and I both sat and stared at him, waiting for what had to be serious news.

Dr. Verma explained to us that Evan was experiencing pulmonary hypertension and he anticipated that our little baby would likely need to be placed on an ECMO machine. The only hospital that has one is Children's. He had already called for the helicopter to take Evan there. At the end of the conversation Kevin asked what the survivability rate was, and he said it was 50/50.

The news was incredibly sobering. Kevin had to leave immediately with the doctor and nurse to sign consent forms, so I was alone for what felt like forever. My mom walked in the room, with no words of her own, but held me as we wept together. She sat by my side and told me it would be okay.

"But okay could mean losing him," I said, "I feel like this entire journey with the twins has been about seeing the goodness of God and how powerful He is, what if He wants to use this to show people that we believe He is good and powerful and gracious even if He takes Evan away?"

We all felt the same: God is good and loving even if He takes our son, but we will cry out to Him for His healing power. And we did; we called, texted, and asked the Facebook world to cry out with us, on our behalf, and for our son.

Evan arrived at Children's hospital, and within an hour he was stable; the doctor there questioned the records from Mercy, but we all knew that there was only One Person who had done anything to stabilize our boy. Saturday night and part of Sunday Evan still seemed to be in a dangerous place, he was stable but not showing signs that he was "out of the woods" as Kevin would say.

On Monday night, my mom and I wheeled down to the NICU to see Eli (Kevin had spent most of his time at Children's with Evan) and I asked the nurse when I would finally be able to hold him. After looking at his charts, she said there was no reason I couldn't hold him now.

I cried. I had only put my hand through a hole in his incubator to touch him, and I was only able to do that late Sunday.

I waited while she got him ready, and once she handed him to me it was as if tears were not even possible because of the joy in my heart. My mom and I headed back to my room after twenty minutes and I had missed four calls from Kevin, I called him back and the doctor had said Evan officially made a turn for recovery, and it seemed almost in spite of the things they had done, and thought by the end of the week he should be able to go back to Mercy.

Evan continues to get better and better, and so does Eli. Today (Oct. 7, 2010), they are together again. The doctors say we probably have two to three weeks before they will be able to come home. Our older boys love their little brothers, today they sang to them and talked to them and put their hands on them.

I'm still waiting to hold Evan.