Making Home Work

We would like Timothy to be home.

Such an easy decision. Such an easy sentence to say. Making it work is nothing close to easy. 

So we are working on making it work. I noticed yesterday that Jen's tiredness was getting near her breaking point (A very bad place to be in for a pastor's wife on the weekend). You see, since coming home, it has been easiest to keep Timmy downstairs overnight rather than move all his equipment and find room for it in our room. This means Jen has been staying in the living room with him. While caring for a child with tubes and wires and medications, 2 hands are not always enough. This means that I have chosen to stay downstairs in the living room with them. So how do we both get the rest we need? We drafted Larissa (I think she would have signed up for service voluntarily. Scratch that, I know she would have.) So, last night, Jen went to bed early (with the kids) and Larissa and I stayed downstairs to care for Timmy. My plan was to take turns rocking Timmy, patting his chest when he was coughing, moving him around if his nose got stuffy. Larissa had other plans. Aside from giving meds, putting saline drops in his nose to clear his head, and taking him one of the times he was coughing, Larissa took the whole night of duties. I would wake up from time to time and ask her if she was doing OK. I noticed that she slept a little in the chair with Timmy, a little on the couch with Timmy, and had Timmy sleeping in his chair swing and in his Pack and Play throughout the night. And then, after falling asleep around 5:15 (having set my watch to wake me at 5:50 to do meds), I woke up to my alarm with Jen being downstairs and Larissa off to her own bed.

We still had some extra work in juggling how things were arranged in the living room (set up for living in, not caring for a baby in), so this morning was spent rearranging the living room into a caring corner. Now Timmy can be held in the chair, or on the couch with minimal moving stuff around. He can be in the swing or pack and Play and still be connected to the G-tube pump, the Pulse-Ox monitor and the oxygen. The picture was taken as Jen was finishing arranging things so that things will be easy to get to, without being all over the couch. Hopefully, the small increase in efficiency makes 'making it work' a little less work.

Timmy has had a little nasal congestion, but is sleeping well otherwise. He is looking around and content most of the time, and back to being his smiling self often. As always, we are grateful.