Today is little John's 6th day of life, and every day that goes by makes me feel so much more hopeful. As I pump and package up his milk to take to the NICU for storage, I have to date and time stamp each container. I do a little happy dance each time that date goes up.
He's been doing really well this week, far better than I imagined he would...now I can sleep peacefully at night knowing that everything is going to be ok instead of just hoping. The doctors are still telling us that he's looking great, and the few problems he's having are perfectly normal for a guy his age. His weight last night was 1 lb 12 oz, so he hasn't lost too much since birth (and is even up a whole .1 oz, yay!!!!)
He tried breathing without the CPAP on day 2, but it was a little too much for him that day. He has the silly habit of getting too tired to breathe (apnea) and then his heart slows down (bradycardia). They refer to this as the As and Bs. It's a bit unnerving to watch it happen, but the nurses are so good at what they do that I'm able to stay pretty calm. They grade the episodes of As and Bs from 1-4. With a 1 he quickly pulls himself out of it, and a 4 being when a nurse has to manually pump his lungs for him. So far he's only had 1s and 2s, thank God! He's back on CPAP because he wasn't quite ready for just the cannula, but I'm ok with that. He's making so much progress in other areas that I'm just so proud of how hard he's fighting.
The other issue is a digestive issue. He's been taking about 4 ml of milk every 3 hours since day 3. A small feeding tube goes down his throat into his cute little belly; at feeding time, a syringe of milk is connected and gravity pulls it down in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately he started throwing up yesterday so we're trying to figure out what's going on. Xrays show he doesnt have blockage, and quite a bit of air is pulled out of the tube before each feeding. It looks like the CPAP is getting too much air in his belly and he's not pooping yet so things are just a little trapped. They put him on a pump to slow his feeding to 40 minutes each, and they pull the air out of his tummy to relieve the pressure. Now we're just waiting for that first good poop! He tried to go a little yesterday, and John and I were there cheering him on. It wasn't much, and we're looking forward to our next visit to see if he's had progress. It's funny how bad we want him to poop right now because I know in 6 months I'm going to be so tired of changing his diapers! If things don't start moving along soon they'll give him a suppository to help him out which makes me feel better. It makes me sad to think of him with an upset tummy.
Well, I'd better get going to visit. We only get to touch him 4 times per day when he gets his "cares" done--this is when he gets his diapers changed, temp taken, belly measured, weighed, xrayed, etc. We get to take part in most of it so we get really excited when 8:00 and 2:00 (am/pm) roll around. After we do his cares, we get to snuggle him with our hands. He really has taken a liking to my fingers. He prefers my finger over anyone elses, and will accept daddy's pinkie if I'm not around. When I talk to him he squeezes my finger with a tough little grip and it's the moment I look forward to most of all each day. Pretty soon he'll be off minimum stimulation and we'll get to be with him more, then we get to move up to "skin-to-skin" where we get to put him inside our shirts on our chests to hold him. I almost have a heart attack from excitement just thinking of this, I just want to hold him so badly!!!!
Until the next time, send happy pooping thoughts to Little John!
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