3.5 days, 88 hours

Joshua seems to be doing well. Thank you for your prayers. This morning the cloth that covers his cele had the LEAST amount of CSF on it since he was born! That means the leak is slowing down and/or healing over. We are thrilled for that!

He was only up once in the night and fed well. Unfortunately, Oceana is still a baby (of sorts) and had a bad night. She started crying just after we put Joshua down from his last feed around 11:30. So Matt went in her room and laid down with her for several hours (she's in a big-girl-bed now). Then he came back and she started crying again, so I went and slept with her for a few hours. Then my alarm clock went off (in the other room) to feed Joshua at 4am, so I went running back into the bedroom to turn it off and feed Joshua. After I finished feeding Joshua I put him down and slept for a few minutes - before Oceana started crying again. So back into her bed we went. At 6am we got up and found Gramma and Nana. I started to have a cup of coffee, and Matt came out and told me that Joshua was making "faces". So I went in and picked him up - poor boy needed some serious burping. We fell asleep together and stayed put for several hours. Matt took him for a while, and then brought him back again to eat. I've just stumbled out of bed at 10am.

I told my dad this morning - "2 kids is hard!"

Well, it's certainly calls for less in the sleep department anyways.

Thank you for your prayers regarding our decision, we're about 99% on that decision. We were doing out "research" yesterday, and received a bit of information that pretty much decided it for us. Praise God that He is clear in His guidance.

In answer to some of the questions from bloggers:

**There really isn't anything we can do to "fix" Joshua. Our non-medically-trained minds wanted us to think that the surgeons could just "open the skull up and put it back in". But brain surgery is sooooo much more than that. Imagine an egg. If you boil it, you have 3 distinct parts - a shell, a white, and a yolk. But if you were to crack that egg open and scramble it, you'd still have 3 parts, but nothing distinct. When trying to explain this to my family, this is how it made sense to me. Joshua's brain matter may ALL be there, but it's not in the right order, and it's been through some ::scrambling::. Also, his skull has fused and it's the size of a 22 week old fetus, not a 41 week gestation newborn. There's no way to put 28cm of brain circumference into an already full 15cm of skull circumference.

**Havie - Yes, Josiah was there for the delivery. It was unplanned for Dad, Josi, and Oceana to be at the delivery, but they "apparently" stayed by my head. I asked him later if he's scarred for life and he says no. But it was probably good birth-control for him. :)


**I feel fantastic. Thank you heaps for praying for my recovery! It was my hope that having a natural birth would help me have a quicker recovery (vs. a c-section or a medicated birth where I'd have been groggy afterwards). I have to remind myself that I had a baby nearly 4 days ago, because it doesn't feel like it. I'm tired, but who - with two children - isn't? I also ran the marathon of my life on Monday. But getting up and down, sitting/standing, pick up Oceana, picking up stuff off the floor is all getting really easy. Thank goodness. After Oceana I was really sore and stiff. Yay for a quick recovery!

Prayer requests for today:
**No pain for Joshua, and that we would recognize his discomfort quickly. We really can't be sure if he's in pain sometimes. In other words, when he's got gas/needs burped he doesn't cry, he just twists his face up. When he throws his head back he hits the cele and starts flailing his arms and legs.
**Continued Divine wisdom for us.
**Continued strength and peace for our physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies.
**Oceana as she navigates through a major life change. I think last night's lack of sleep is probably a result of her not knowing what's going on.
**All the time we can have with Joshua. We know that God already has His days counted - just like ours are. But we want every precious day that God has alloted for him.
**For the leaking to stop and the thinnest membranes to grow thicker to prevent infection.
**Against any infections!