"He shouldn't have made it, you know"

We always knew that Caleb is a miracle and that he almost didn't survive his first week, but I never really knew how close he was to dying on the day he was born. At work on Friday, I ran into one of the respiratory therapists that took care of Caleb when he was in the NICU. He asked how C was and was thrilled when I told him how well he is doing. He then told me that he's been wanting to tell me something for a long time, but wanted to wait until he knew that Caleb was doing well. "He shouldn't have made it you know. I am not really sure how he did. We tried the regular ventilator, then the high frequency ventilator, and back to the regular ventilator and nothing was keeping his oxygen levels up," he said. He then told me that he "bagged" him, meaning gave him breaths (like CPR but through his ventilator tube) for about 30 minutes since that was the only thing that kept his oxygen saturation's in the semi-normal range. This guy pretty much kept Caleb alive as the nurses and doctors decided what to do. I cannot get this out of my head. I knew that Caleb struggled to breathe after he was born, that the medicine they gave him to help his lungs didn't work, that they put him on a ventilator that gave him over 300 breaths a minute, and as a "last ditch effort" they gave pumped nitric oxide into him to help his lungs. I also knew that and that he had a very hard time keeping his blood pressure up despite all of the medications that they were giving him. But, I never knew that he was bagged for that long. On one hand I am glad that he told me, but now I just can't stop thinking about it. It's pretty much standard on the floor that I work on that after 30-45 minutes of doing CPR on a person, if nothing is working, we pronounce the person dead. What if that would have been the case with Caleb? I am so grateful for Aaron and his steady hand that gave Caleb his breaths for so long. I am so grateful for the doctors and nurses who didn't give up on Caleb when nothing was working. And I thank God for giving these people the wisdom to get Caleb through that critical day/week (and our 3 month stay), for giving Caleb the strength and will to survive, and also that he doesn't have any lasting effects from the lack of oxygen he had the day he was born. I know I say it often, we are truly blessed. Now if I could just get our little miracle to sleep in his own bed......