Miles Ahead

We are pleased to report Little Miles is doing well in his second day in NICU. The nurses say he is in excellent shape given his gestational age.

It’s a bit hard to see our little guy hooked up to so many tubes and wires. Lisa says that he reminds her of her childhood, when she and her sister Wendy tried to save many a baby bird that fell out of its nest too early. He’s likely to look rather fragile for a while. But we already have the sense that he’s a tough little cookie. At delivery, he was doing his own breathing and even cried, which touched our hearts. Although he is now on a ventilator, he is breathing normal air with only the occasional oxygen booster.

Lisa is in good spirits (other than worrying about Miles) and recovering swiftly from her ordeal. On top of her amazing feat of 22 days on complete bed rest in the antepartum unit, she was a trooper throughout 14 ½ often painful hours of labor, culminating in a very impressive final series of pushes. This not only earned her my eternal gratitude and respect -- she also won the pool. Her predicted delivery time of 3:00 a.m. was, unfortunately, much closer to the actual time (2:35 a.m.) than the more optimistic predictions of everyone else in the room.

Lisa and I expect to be discharged from the hospital tomorrow, while Miles can look forward to a stay of several months. We will, however, have generous visiting privileges.

We do have lots of photos—we just can’t upload them yet because I forgot to bring the USB cable to the hospital. But we will post a few glimpses of Miles once we get back home.

We have not yet had an opportunity to thank each of you individually for your visits, support and well wishes. We’ve read every message and each one has meant a lot to us.

In due course we hope to thank everyone who has provided or offered help. But for the moment, we would be remiss if we did not recognize the tremendous support we received from Aly Frei, who was with us throughout the day and night of delivery. Not only did Aly bring a tremendous wealth of knowledge from her days as a NICU nurse, but her friendship and emotional support to both of us was just as valuable. Aly, we’ve always been glad to know you, but never more so than the last few days.

We’d also like to thank our moms, Margee and Judith, for all of their help over the past few weeks and for their support on the night of delivery.

-Dean