Surgery success!

Nathaniel is out of the operating room. He's heavily sedated right now in order to keep his heart from having to do much work. He's got tubes into his chest cavity, tubes directly into his heart, tubes into his lungs, etc. As much work as possible is being done for him.

All things considered, he looks fantastic. I've never been happier to see a drooling, knocked out baby in my life.

The doctor said everything went fine and there were no complications during surgery. His next 24 hours will be very important, obviously. There's considerable risk for infection with so many tubes impanted deep within him.

But he looks like he's going to make it and be a regular kid soon enough.

This has been an amazing ride from Thursday night through today. We're not in the clear yet, of course, but we're over the biggest obstacle. It's still difficult to believe we went from planning to take him home last Saturday to now hoping he can make it home in February -- and being excited at the possibility.

I'll keep updating about his progress here. Thanks, yet again, to all the friends, neighbors and strangers who have lent their support to us in this difficult past five days. We're lucky to have so many who care for us. Everyone should be so lucky.