My Shepherd Brings Me Home

Thursday night, just before midnight, William went to be with God.
I held him for a while until his heart stopped.
Jeff and I sang him a song based on Psalm 23. William listened, and I think his heart kept slowing down, and it stopped shortly after we finished the song. He seemed very peaceful.

William had had a pretty rough day. It started out ok, but he had ups and downs. At some point in the afternoon, his heart rate and saturations were really bad and his blood pressure was high, which was strange. They tried a few things, eventually suctioning his breathing tube (which is routine) and after the sixth time or so, they got a little plug to come out and his stats all came back up and William became his self again. We thought the coast was clear, so Jeff left for a rehearsal in Elgin. While I went to get dinner at the hospital, William started doing worse again. Not saturating with oxygen as well. The doctors tried a few things, offering a bit more support on some of his settings. Giving him fresh frozen plasma. They told me to tell Jeff to turn around when it didn't look like some of those things were helping.
In addition, William had been leaking a lot of fluid and more air from his abdomen. Foul looking stuff. Possibly mixed with stool, and his body (his neck in particular) looked more puffy. His belly was starting to be bluish. His lactic acid levels in his body we're increasing, indicating dying cells. The ph level in his body was also bad. All of this, indicated that his intestines were dying, and there was nothing we could do, or could have done.
Once Jeff got back, they tried suctioning again, but that didn't help William. One of the things the docs had told us was that William's heart might just start slowing down gradually when we were nearing the end. We had started seeing his heart rate more normally earlier in the day, and by evening it was very slow. Slow enough where they wanted to make sure I could hold him before it was too late. So I held our son, and we talked to him, and sang to him. And tried to not cry too much. His eyes had opened all the way by Thursday, and even though he probably couldn't make sense of what he saw, he did move his eyes and kept them open, looking at us.
We stayed with William for a while after. Taking turns holding him, giving him a bath and changing his diaper and dressing him. It was awful saying goodbye, leaving him there. I don't know how we did it.
Friday, we went back to the hospital to drop off a few things and to check in with a few people, including William's main doctor. The ISCU team has turned into family over this short time and today it feels really strange to not be there.
Jeff and I appreciate so much everything that everyone has done for us and William, all of the support we've received.

Thank you for praying for William.  God performed amazing things with William, surprising OBGYNs, MFMs, and Neonatal doctors.  We are incredibly blessed even to have gotten to know him and his personality over these past two weeks.  Please bear with us as we go through grieving his loss and we may not be able to communicate with everyone as we would like to.  We will continue to do a few more posts to keep people updated.

Thanks and we love you all, and we're sure William would say thanks for praying for him so that he could have a fighting chance and be able to meet his family.

We leave you with the song we sang, Psalm 23 in the words of Isaac Watts:

My Shepherd will supply my need, Jehovah is His name,
In pastures fresh He makes me feed beside the living stream;
He brings my wandering spirit back when I forsake His way,
And leads me for His mercy's sake in paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death His presence is my stay,
One word of His supporting grace drives all my fears away;
His hand in sight of all my foes doth still my table spread,
My cup with blessings overflows, His oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God attend me all my days;
Oh, may Thy house be my abode and all my work be praise;
There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come;
No more a stranger nor a guest, but like a child at home.