June 22

Dear all,

I spent some time talking to Dr. Ishii tonight. Isaac's PDA surgery is scheduled for June 22. The surgeon will check his condition one more time next week to confirm that the surgery should go ahead on that day. Unfortunately, Jong is currently scheduled to be away on June 22. Basically, they only do surgeries (or this type of surgery - not sure which is correct because of the language barrier) on Thursdays. Jong is here next Thursday but they already have a surgery scheduled for next Thursday. Jong is then away for 2 Thursdays in a row on 2 separate trips and we don't want to wait another 2 extra weeks for Isaac's surgery.

I actually do want to get pass the surgery sooner rather than later because we are planning to start discussing Isaac's possible move with Dr. Ishii after his surgery. I really do want to get Isaac transferred because not being able to spend more time with him is becoming harder and harder as he is becoming more aware. Every preemie parent has told me that I need to spend as much time as I can with Isaac for his health. Toho is not going to change its policy although the nurses do realize that many other NICUs no longer has this arcane policy (apparently as I suspected, their policy is not really for the babies' health but is at least partially because the nurses in the "growing room" don't want to have to deal with parents hanging around for too long and they can't change the policy for just NICU and not the growing room). So many times during our visits, esp. towards the end, Isaac keeps peeping his eye open and it really seems like he is trying to see if we are still there. Tonight, when he peeped his eyes open, he was definitely peeping at me cause we made eye contact. It really, really breaks my heart that I am not allowed to be with him for longer.

Anyway, I need to go to bed as I have an early start tomorrow. I will post pictures later.

God bless,

Sonia