Christian made it through his surgeries without a bump. He has a tracheostomy in his airway for breathing and a gtube in his stomach for eating. I was expecting him to be groggy for half the day but when he came up from surgery, his eyes were wide open and he was moving his arms and hands around like he was ready to go. It was so great to see my baby's face again. Absolutely nothing was taped to it. His mouth and tongue are swollen from the intubation tube, the taping and retaping, and his mouth never being shut for two weeks. But I love my little fishy face. When his swelling comes down, I'll post before and after pictures so you guys can see his progress.

I feel good about our decision. And the funny thing is, Christian's been coughing and showing gag signals today. So we know it's there, he just has to work on getting them strong enough to substantially clear his airways and we can remove the trach. I know he'll do it in time. He's also breathing through his nose, which is funny because he snorts a little. I really think just getting that tube out of his throat has made him so comfortable. I also think it limited him with his progress. Now that it's gone, he can move on.

An Occupational Therapist came by yesterday to teach us some range of motion exercises and those are fun because they help him stretch. There is so much we have to learn about taking care of trachs and gtubes. Gtubes are simple enough but we'll need to take 6 hours of training for the trach. That starts Thursday. Because his flexing and posturing actually point his feet, in order to encourage his foot to move back into a right angle for walking, the doctors suggested high tops. So Daddy is going out to buy Christian his first pair of Chuck's Converse high tops. Not sure this is what the doctors had in mind.

So what's next? CPAP trials start again tomorrow. We wanted to give him a break today and leave him on a low level of oxygen during his surgery recovery. But we'll start weaning him off the vent tomorrow. I have no doubt he'll be fine. He seems ready to move on to the next phase and so are we!

Thank you for all of the prayers today! They continue to lift us up and move us through.