Day 122 (Nov 16) - Hearing the music

The evening of day 118 Mimi prayed, "Please have Jonathan come home tomorrow. Help Jonathan come home the day after picture day. He really should be in his crib, that one, in his room. So you just need to heal him so he can be here." He wouldn't be coming home to his crib for over a month, but exciting things happened that week anyway.

By day 120 they had finally gotten Jonathan extubated, his lungs finally clear enough from the pnemonia that he could start to breathe more on his own. They had thought he was almost there on day 119. They then waited until after his eye exam, just to be sure he was ready. There was a good chance that he'd need a second eye surgery, given how severe his retinopathy of prematurity had been. Just after the eye doctor delivered the good news -- his ROP was regressing still -- the doctors took out the tube.  He was on CPAP for many days after.

On day 121 Jonathan, still on CPAP, finally hit five pounds. His incubator top had been popped a month before, but they didn't want to give him a crib until his gut surgery was behind him. But it was clear, he was a big boy now. And it was time. A real baby crib. Not the one Mimi had prayed for, but we were still thrilled. The days of the incubator were behind us.  He had graduated to a "feeder/grower" baby.

With the new crib came crib toys, including a music box.  On day 122 J both came off CPAP and began to listen to music.

Jonathan had developed the ability to hear shortly before birth. He hadn't heard much beside the ding of hospital bells and human voices.

When the electronic music of the NICU music box started up, Jonathan became very still. He concentrated hard. This wasn't a hospital ding or an alarm. This wasn't a human voice or acapella song. This was different.

It took him a few minutes, but then he became visibly excited. THIS was something new, and he thought he liked it.

Realizing how great music was, we promptly went out and bought him a CD player. We brought in Go Fish's CD Snooze for him to enjoy.

To this day his favorite music is a capella. He has an appreciation for strings as well. If you want him to smile or respond, even on his worst of days, he will cheer up to good music. He will look merely confused if you sing off tune.