A Cool kid?

Another big thank you to all of you who have written and emailed and commented to us over the last 30 hours or so. Your thoughts have really kept us going.

An update: Amanda is feeling much better - a sponge bath and some Vicodin can work wonders, I'm told, but she's still in obvious pain. The say we'll be discharged in the normal 48 hours, so we'll head home Sunday morning if all goes well. She's also on a liquid diet, which sucks, but she just inhaled her lunch of broth, tea, milk, grape juice, and "strawberry health shake," which smelled as good as it sounds.

Although we will go home Sunday, Jude won't. His type of trauma and the fact that he starting exhibiting signs of seizures made him an ideal candidate for cooling blanket therapy, a new treatment in which babies under six hours old with oxygen-deprived brains are cooled to mild controlled hypothermia over the course of three days in order to slow the brain's metabolism and possibly halt further damage to brain cells. It's a well-received treatment from my cursory research, with no reported adverse effects, and the Cerebral Palsy society cited that it can defend against 16-27% of potential brain damage. Also, the RN assigned to Jude participated in the original two clinical trials of the treatment, so she knows what she's doing with it.

Of course, we don't know for sure that there's anything wrong yet. The best-case scenario, according to the NICU head, is that there was some trauma, but no lasting damage, and that he'll be fully functional (a story that some of you have shared with us, and, believe me, inspired us with). The worst-case scenario involves possible CP, Mental retardation, blindness, deafness, and other assorted neurological conditions.

Right now, he's listed as being "Guarded, Stable," which means he's not getting any worse, and they really don't know what's wrong, if anything at all. The scary part is that he was having mild seizure-like symptoms (without the telltale BP drop).

Amanda and I know, though, that whatever Jude does or doesn't have, we'll work with it, love him, and give him everything we can. We're a great team, and I feel like we're up to any challenge as parents.

Update: He turned to face Amanda when he heard her voice. Awesome. Maybe no deafness?