March 30, 2012

March 30, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 9 ounces. He lost 10 grams.

Labs: none

Alarms: 9 total, all self-resolved.

Oxygen/Lungs: No change.

Belly/Bowels: No change

Skin-to-Skin/Holding Time: We didn’t go up til about 8 last night and held him til about 10:30. Long day of bathroom remodeling. (Actually a long day of house chores for me.)

Feedings: Because he actually lost a little weight, they increased his feeding to 35 ml per 3 hours. However, the dr. said he may just need a little more protein in the form of a supplement. They will watch him another day or two to see if he starts catching up, then consider adding protein. She said that this is strictly because he is a boy and boys need more protein than girls. Nothing to get worked up about.

March 29, 2012

March 29, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 10 ounces.

Labs: none

Alarms: 6 total, all self-resolved.

Oxygen/Lungs: Still no oxygen needed!

Belly/Bowels: No change

Skin-to-skin/Holding Time: While Alex continued to work on demo’ing our bathroom, I went up and held E for a couple hours. He was very smiley tonight!

Feedings: Because he gained a few more ounces, they had to increase his feeding to keep up with that. So he is now up to 34 ml every 3 hours.

Side Note: Also, E got a roommate today named August. They are calling him “Auggie.” (Additional side note: Auggie weighed 11 pounds 3 ounces at birth. Holy smokes!) Apparently Auggie’s dad came in and noticed that his roommate was “Eddie” and said “Huh, Eddie and Auggie. They sound like they could be college roommates!” I thought it was cute.

March 28, 2012

March 28, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 8 ounces. More about this in the “Feedings” section.

Alarms: 9 total, all self-resolved.

Labs: none planned until 3/31.

Oxygen/Lungs: Still on room air. Dr said that after a week of no oxygen and still doing well, he will be able to come off the oxygen (saturation) monitor. So hopefully by Friday he will have one less monitor!

Belly/Bowels: No change.

Skin-to-Skin Time/Holding: I went up at my normal afternoon time and held the little guy from about 2-4, then Alex came at 5 and held him til about 7. We also had some friends, Ali & Aaron, come visit.

Feedings: Because over the last week or so, E is still gaining weight, but not quite as fast he could based on his caloric intake. So today, they went ahead and upped his caloric intake per kilogram, so hopefully he will start really packing on the pounds. He’s now up to 32 ml per feeding. Grow, buddy, grow!

Side note: Eye drainage has self-resolved. Probably just a little clogged tear duct.

March 27, 2012

March 27, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 7 ounces

Labs: none

Alarms: 9 total, all self-resolved.

Oxyen/Lungs: Still doing great on room air

Belly/Bowels: Still having stinky poops from the milk fortifier!

Skin-to-Skin Time/Holding: I held him from 2-4, and then Alex held him from 5-6:45. Little E got lots of ma’ and pa’ time today.

Feedings: He’s getting 30ml (ONE whole ounce) every 3 hours. He’s doing so well!

March 25, 2012

March 25, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 6 ounces. I think I had yesterday’s weight wrong, it was actually 3 pounds 5 ounces. Don’t wanna jip the little man of the ounce that he earned!

Alarms: 7 total alarms.

Labs: None.

Oxygen/Lungs: Still room air.

Belly/Bowels: One thing that is VERY noticeable is that now that he is on the human milk fortifier, his poop STINKS. It is not a pleasant smell when his diaper needs changed. Uck!

Skin-to-Skin Time/Holding: Alex went up around 11 with some family to hang out while I was at our first baby shower. E got to meet some more family. He met Uncle Sam, great grandpa Eddie, and also saw Grandpa Koehn and Grandpa Fast again. Everyone seems to love him : ) I went up about 5 and held him till his next feeding at 8. I absolutely love our skin-to-skin time. And today he started really “rooting,” (I hate that word) which means he is “looking around” to start breastfeeding. He is such a big boy! I can’t wait til he can actually breastfeed. I think I will feel like I am directly involved in his care, instead of an innocent bystander. Not that I don’t feel like I’m his mom, but it will just feel more “real” for me. Make sense?

Feedings: Up to 29 ml every 3 hours. Almost an ounce at a time!

Side Note: He is having a small amount of drainage from his left eye. Apparently their tear ducts can clog very easily and usually clears up on there own. The doctor is aware and wants to just watch it for now. The nurse also said that they sometimes massage the tear duct and it clears all the gunk out. Poor little buddy! She said it doesn’t usually bother the baby. Let’s hope not.

March 24, 2012

March 24, 2012

Weight: Lost 10 grams yesterday, gained it back today. Still 3 pounds 4 ounces.

Alarms: Only 2 in 24 hours. Yesssss!

Labs: Results of state adrenal function test back, everything within normal limits.

Oxygen/Lungs: Still no oxygen, only a few self-resolved de-sats. Doing well!

Belly/Bowels: No change.

Skin-to-Skin Time/Holding: Lots of family here today. Grandma and Grandpa Fast and Grandma and Grandpa Koehn. Grandma Fast got to hold Little E today. She loved it! Except when he decided to sneeze and out came a little milk from his nose. She promptly instructed me to take him back : )

Feedings: Up to 28 ml every 3 hours. Can you believe his little belly tolerates all that?

March 23, 2012

March 23, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 4 ounces. Holding steady.

Alarms: Only 2 for the day shift, self resolved of course.

Labs: None today.

Oxygen/Lungs: Because he has had a lesser amount of alarms, the dr decided to try him off of oxygen. Yay! No more nasal cannula!

Belly/Bowels: Doing better with the human milk fortifier. No need to change it to the more hypoallergenic kind at this point.

Skin-to-Skin/Holding Time: It’s becoming the “norm” for me to arrive at the hospital around 2 or 3 and then get him out to hold him at the 5 o clock feeding. Then I keep him out until Alex gets there, and he usually gets another hour or so of holding before we go home at about 7:30 or 8. Yes, it is a long day at the hospital, but totally worth every second.

Feedings: Still continuing to increase on feedings and tolerating fine. Feedings are fortified with human milk fortifier for extra fat, protein and calories. He was also started on iron supplements today.

March 22, 2012

March 22, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 4 ounces.

Alarms: Only 7 in the last 24 hours. Yeah buddy!

Labs: Hematocrit up to 29-no transfusion necessary. Yeah! Bilirubin down to 6.1. No phototherapy, either! Yeah, our child is a rockstar.

Oxygen/Lungs: Still on 21% 1L NC. He keeps pulling the cannula out of his nose. This must be a sign that he doesn’t need it!

Belly/Bowels: Still pooping, but showing signs that he may not be digesting the human milk fortifier quite right. They’ll continue to watch it for another day or so, but have to use a more hypoallergenic version for awhile until he can process the human milk version.

Skin-to-Skin Time/Holding: I only got about 30 minutes before Alex stole him from me. Poor me.

Feedings: Up to 24 ml of milk every 3 hours. He’ll fatten up in no time!

Also, because he doesn’t have an IV anymore, he gets to wear onesies now! When I showed up to the hospital today he had this cute little onesie on that the hospital provided. My little one is growing up!

March 21, 2012

March 21, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 3 ounces. They took out his PICC line today, so they said to not be surprised if he doesn’t gain any weight tomorrow. This is because of the decreased IV fluids and the weight of the PICC line itself. [The PICC line is his IV access. It is a line that runs from his tiny little forearm all the way to his heart. It is a sturdy IV that doesn’t need replaced as often as a regular IV]

Alarms: Only 7 total. With that number decreasing, they will start considering weaning his oxygen off. Yay!

Labs: No labs today, but did have a one week follow-up head ultrasound. No head bleeds. Thank goodness.

Oxygen/Lungs: Will continue on the 21% 1L NC for now.

Belly/Bowels: Still having regular bowel movements on his own. Gettin that bilirubin out!

Skin-to-Skin Time/Holding: I held him only for about 30 minutes or so until Alex could get to the hospital after work. Then he held him so that he could hang out with his parents while I waited outside (only 3 visitors allowed at a time.) While I was gone, Alex’s mom got to hold him as well. She was thrilled about getting to do that, while I must say, I was a little nervous about it. I guess that’s what mom’s do, right? Worry? I had to run down to where I work while they were spending time together, so by the time I got back it had been a good hour that Alex got to spend with him. I think he really enjoyed that time : )

Feedings: Still increasing his feedings, up to 24 ml now. He also gets a human milk fortifier for extra calories in the feedings. So far, tolerating this fine.

March 20, 2012

March 20, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 2 ounces. Still gaining!

Alarms: 11 total in the past 24 hours. Apparently this has been his standard number for several days. Hey, at least he’s consistent : )

Labs: Electrolytes all within normal limits. Bilirubin up to 6.6, however no need for more phototherapy yet. Hematocrit (Hct) down to 25. No transfusion yet, but may need in the next couple of days if it drops to 23-24. Also, at 2 weeks of age they can start him on iron supplementation. If he holds steady until Friday, we could possibly do just iron and not have to give him blood. Hold on tight, buddy! You can make it!

Oxygen/Lungs: Still on the 1L of 21% oxygen, doing fine.

Belly/Bowels: Had one feeding with a residual of 9 ml. They fed the residual back to him and held that feeding, but all others were given. Apparently he had a very large bowel movement right after that episode, so the dr was not too concerned about it : )

Skin-to-Skin/Holding Time: I held him for about and hour then Alex took over so I could pump. We both love this time. Alex always offers to take him so I can pump : ) He is such a great dad!

Feedings: Continuing to advance his feeding amount. Not sure what he is up to, but somewhere around 20 ml every 3 hours. Hard to believe his little tummy can tolerate all that!

March 19, 2012

March 19, 2012

Weight: 3 pounds 1 ounce. Over birth weight! Yeah!

Alarms: Still having some bradycardia’s, but nothing that he doesn’t “fix” himself. They say this will resolve with age.

Labs: No labs today, except for blood gases (ABG). This is a measure of circulating oxygen and CO2. Apparently they were so good that he got to graduate to ALL NC time! No more CPAP! Thank goodness. He really didn’t like that thing in his nose.

Oxygen/Lung Status: 1 liter NC continuously-no more CPAP!

Belly/Bowels: Still continuing to poop on his own. No more suppositories! So glad he’s getting all that bilirubin out of his system.

Skin-to-skin Holding Time: Another 2 ½ hours today. Love that time!

Feedings: Tolerating the increase in milk through his neotube. [This is the tube that goes down his throat to his belly.] Only a slight bit of residual (0.5-2 ml), nothing to be concerned about.

All in all, he is doing very well. Labs will be drawn tomorrow, so we’ll see if he’s still progressing. Stay tuned!

March 18, 2012

March 18, 2012

Weight: 2 pounds 15 ounces. Up one ounce and almost back to birth weight. Yeah!

Alarms: Dr. didn’t say how many, but did say that he’s had the same amount while on NC as he did with CPAP. That’s a good thing.

Labs: No labs today.

Oxygen/Lung Status: Because he is not alarming any more than he was before, they changed him to 9 hours NC time and 3 hours CPAP time. He’s movin’ up!

Belly/Bowels: Like I said yesterday, he had two BM’s all by himself. Hopefully the trend keeps up!

Skin-to-Skin/Holding Time: None yet today. We are hoping to get there to do that this afternoon. It’s Alex’s turn today : )

March 17, 2012

March 17, 2012

Weight: 2 pounds 14 ounces. Up two ounces! Doc said this is a good gain, but don’t expect that much every day.

Alarms: 7 total bradychardia’s, no intervention. This means that his heart rate dropped below the normal limits, but required no stimulation or intervention. In other words, his heart rate drops then he brings himself right back up to normal. This is normal for preemies and will usually resolve itself with more age.

Labs: Bilirubin 4.2 (3.0 yesterday). Back up after taking away the phototherapy, but nothing alarming. Hct down to 29, transfusion very possible by this next week. Once again, this is normal for small babies. Labs will be re-drawn on Monday or Tuesday.

Oxygen/Lung Status: Still on 6 hours NC, 6 hours CPAP. Doing fine so far. Having a little bit of tachypnea (fast breathing), but oxygen saturation still holding strong. I’m assuming this means he is trying to adjust to less oxygen. He’s working hard, but so far keeping up!

Belly/Bowels: Had 2 bowel movements while I was at the hospital today! They hadn’t given him any glycerin suppositories since yesterday, either, so he did it all on his own. Go Eddie!

I held him today for almost 2 ½ hours. Holding him has definitely become my favorite part of the day! We do skin-to-skin holding with him anytime we can, which literally means he lays without anything on but a diaper against one of our bare chests. He’s so little that they basically just pack his little legs down the shirt and he curls up on our chest. The best part about that is that you can hear all of his little coos, grunts and yawns. It really is the sweetest thing.

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for more tomorrow! And keep praying that Little E continues to grown and mature each day.

March 16, 2012

As you all know, little Edward (Eddie) Ray was born prematurely at 28 1/2 weeks. I have decided to use this blog to keep my family and friends posted on his daily updates. The neonatologist that seems him each day calls us and gives us a detailed update as to how little E is doing. We have been very happy with the dr's and how professional yet caring they are. Here is the update for March 16:

March 16, 2012

Little Eddie seems to be doing well, according to the neonatologist, Dr. Heimes. Dr. Heimes has been seeing Little E for a couple of days now and we seem to really like him. He’s calm and seems to be genuinely concerned for the health of our baby.

E seems to be already making tons of progress. Today he weighs 2 pounds, 11 ½ ounces. He gained half an ounce! Yay! Dr. H says that this is an appropriate/healthy amount for him to gain in a day. His feedings started to increase last night; they will increase him by 2 ml every 12 hours. While we were there last night, they started the increase at 5 pm and he got a whopping 4 ml of milk.

Side note- I am so happy that they are giving him my milk. They are huge believers in giving the mom’s own milk as soon as possible. It helps coat the gut and stimulate digestion, as well as the obvious immunities that everyone already knows about. They feed it to him through a small tube that goes down his throat to his belly, called an OG (orogastric) tube.

Because Eddie has been doing so great on the 9 hours CPAP/ 3 hours nasal cannula (NC) trials, they decided that he could graduate to being on 6 hours of CPAP and 6 hours of NC, 2 times per day. His last chest x ray looked great, so they thought there is no reason for him to start weaning. The nurse and I spoke as well and we decided that they will put him on the NC from 2-8pm to accommodate us being there to hold him, etc while he is free from CPAP. They have been great about accommodating his cares to meet our needs as much as possible. Obviously bigger issues that require a routine, such as his feeding schedule, is not ever altered. As annoying as it is sometimes, it is really the best for him to stay on a very rigorous schedule.

His bilirubin came way down as well, down to 3.0. Although his previous 4.4 was still within normal limits, they had kept the phototherapy light on just to make sure he was going to continue on the downward slope. With it being 3.0 today, they went ahead and got rid of the light. No more sunglasses! His other labs were all looking great too, but they are still keeping an eye on his hemoglobin and hematocrit (Hgb/Hct). Currently his Hct is 29. They will start considering transfusion at somewhere between 24 and 28, depending on his symptoms. With him being as young as he is, his body has not yet learned to produce red blood cells at an adequate rate, so this causes most premature babies to be anemic. It is not an alarming situation, but it does, however, mean that there is a good chance he will need a transfusion in the next week or so. They have done a wonderful job at explaining to us all about transfusions, their risks/benefits, and our different options.

He has not had a bowel movement on his own yet, but no one is really worried about that yet. They do give him glycerin suppositories every 24 hours if needed if he hasn’t had a BM, and those always seem to produce one or two. Because he is not spending much time in the vertical position and is not taking in very much food volume, they say this is very normal for babies his age. Once he starts getting higher amounts of food, his GI system will start catching up.

I think that is all for today. Oh, one more thing. Dr. Heimes said that he is rotating somewhere else for the next week, but he hopes to take care of Eddie when he gets back. He said that E is going to be one of those babies that everyone fights to take care of because he’s so cute and is progressing so well : ) He knows how to make a mom smile!

27 weeks 6 days

So I've been following this cute pregnancy blog and she used this little checklist for each week. I really liked following it each week, so I'm going to steal it and use it as well. Here we go:

How far along? 27 Weeks 6 days

Total weight gain: 31 whopping pounds. Holy cow.
Maternity clothes? Oh yeah, since about week 15 or so!
Stretch marks? No, not yet!
Sleep: Sleeping fine, just waking up every couple of hours to go pee and change positions.
Best moment this week: Accomplishing a Fusion Fitness class....at 27 weeks pregnant : )

Miss Anything? Many, many things. With the warm weather that we've been having, I've really been wishing I could sit on the back patio with a Corona in hand. Don't judge me.
Movement: Tons. Small Fry loves it when I have snacks and when I sit down after a long day at work.

Food cravings: My appetite has seemingly ballooned in the last few days. I feel like a bottomless pit at times.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope
Gender: Boy
Labor Signs: Nope..thank goodness!
Symptoms: Low back pain, hip discomfort, occasional heartburn, sore boobs (again) increasing appetite, acne? on my upper thighs-what is this?!, achy feet

Belly Button in or out? In. Hanging in there by a thread
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy
Looking forward to: Re-gaining control of my own body. And having a cute little baby to show for all this hard work : )

Here are a couple of pics from the last few weeks: Here I am after a quick yoga

workout at home. Alex insisted we

take a picture. I look ridiculous.
(25 weeks, 4 days:)





Getting ready to go out to dinner at Dodge
City Distillery (25 Weeks, 6 Days):



















We have been running around like mad getting baby stuff squared away.We registered at Buy Buy Baby last weekend, Alex painted the baby's room today, I have been continuously looking for stuff to add to our registry and trying to get excess stuff out of the spare bedroom.

Alex also finished touching up the window in the bathroom, so we are now ready to have our tile guy come and remodel our bathroom. I'm excited to have that done!

As I said in my little checklist above, I attended a Fusion Fitness workout class this past Thursday. I was really needing a workout that made me actually feel like I was working my muscles. Working out is really the only thing that makes me feel normal, as weird as that sounds. And "pregnancy" workouts just weren't doing it for me. So I sucked it up and decided to leap back into Fusion, which I've talked about before, and I am SO happy I did. I made some modifications in the movements and took it slow, but surprisingly, I made it through better than some of the other attendants! If you don't remember, Fusion is an incredibly high energy class that combines yoga, pilates, resistance training, and flexibility. Basically it's an hour long bootcamp. Some have compared it to the workout video Insanity. Anyway, I loved every minute of it. And now I know I can do it, so I will be returning. It's amazing how a silly workout can make me feel so much better about my huge pregnant body!

Alright, I think that's all for now. I have a slight headache that I must go nurse....