Jesse's upstairs rinsing off before we head to the hospital.

I took a five hour nap today.
I was trying my old tricks.
I even had Jesse's permission to be completely useless.
But then my phone started ringing, and when I looked at caller i.d., it was the NICU.
They said they needed permission to do something to Reese.
After coming down stairs to explain the situation to Jesse, I called them back.
They need multiple witnesses for my permission over the phone, so one after another...

"This is Emelda, do we have your consent?"
"You have my consent."

"This is Kimberly, do we have your consent?"
"Yes. I consent."

"This is Dr. Han, do we have your consent?"
"Yes."

I'm beginning to think that the only way to cope with a situation of this magnitude, is to fake it.

Today I found myself saying,
Everything is going to be okay.
Somehow, that actually made me feel better.

The doctors have told us to educate ourselves on all the medical terms and procedures we're confronting. When I asked them if we'd be able to do anything with that information, they said, "No... But knowledge is power."
"But then.." I said, "I do want to know what's going on, but knowing doesn't actually help anything, does it?"
They grinned as though I missed the point and were too tired to go over it again with me.
"We don't want you to challenge us. But we want to empower you with knowledge."

Jesse kindly countered that we don't feel empowered. That we feel quite powerless no matter what we know or don't know.

And that's the closest thing to a story I have to tell today.

Jesse's ready to go. He's sitting on the stairs waiting.