Our little man, just relaxing, never having a clue what was about to go on. That the days to follow would be the hardest days of pherhaps his whole life...days that would put his mommy and daddy to the test.....days that his doctors would question the outcome...and days full of amazement over what a 6 lb baby could actually do.
This last picture was from what the staff called "the point of no return". It was the yellow line. The last time we could see Peyton before he went into the OR. When we had to let him go. The toughest part of this whole thing...not knowing if he was going to make it out of surgery. There was a small office room next to the line and the councelors were allwoing us to go in there to regain composure before going back out to the waiting room. I think it took us about 5 minutes before we left the room. 
7:40 Peyton went to the OR
9:30 They had started surgery
10:25 Things were looking great
10:40 His chest was open and they were working with the angel hair veins - doing well on bypass and stats were good
1:30 They were done with surgery and looking with a probe to check for problems
***At this point, i had never ever felt the way I did during this wait. We waited three hours to hear something else from anyone. Anyone at all. Nothing for three hours. I was thinking to myself that Peyton hadnt made it. That his little heart wasnt strong enough to pull him through this and that someone was going to come out and tell me that we wouldnt be taking our precious little miracle home. I was waiting and I just knew that i would hear that.
Finally, they came out and told us that they were finished with the surgery. They had decided to put him on ECMO which is a small heart and lung bypass machine. My baby was on life support. When they had taken him off of bypass - his heart couuldnt handle working "the right way" and pumping the blood all over and it wasnt pusing it past enough and hard enough so they put him on bypass. What a little trooper. I didnt take any pictures that night.
When Rick and I walked into the room - wait...when we walked down the hall and I saw him laying there...tubes and all - i lost it. I tried to be strong and I tried to keep my composure but i just coudlnt. It wasnt the tubes that got me, nor the wires, breathing machine, blood or bandages and IV's. It was my poor babys face. From the surgery and the fluids and being on bypass, his face and whole body was so swelled up. His face was so scrunched that you couldnt even see his eyes. His hat had holes in it and it was covering up his precious little head and eyes too. There was a large sticker covering his forehead and it just didnt look like him and I cried. I cried so hard. People thougth that telling me that it will be okay would be a good thing to do to. Is that what you should really tell someone who's baby is in PICU on lifesupport...that it "will be okay?" Then came the priest who offered to baptise Peyton. That almost brought me to my knees b/c that meant that they wrent sure if he was going to make it or not. I said no. There was no way because he was going to live and I knew it, he was goign to make it out of the hospital and he was going to get baptized where his brothers did. that was the end to a long night. Back to my "dorm room" for the night after that. We stayed in a parents room that was just big enough for a twin bed, night stand and dresser. No bigger. What a cramped situation.
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