Bottle Feeding: Take 1

Today was eventful. I got to spend a lot of time with him. I also got to spend some time during one of his feedings skin on skin. Apparently the technical term is "Kangaroo Care". This is so that he will begin to associate his full tummy with me and my smell, etc. It's also just a great way to bond - to keep him warm.

They attempted his first bottle feed today and that didn't go very well. He doesn't have the suck/swallow reflex yet and so he had a little more than he knew what to do with. After that he remained tight lipped and didn't let the nipple back in, lol.

They've also upped his feedings to 30cc's. The first time they fed him that much he didn't do to well with it and had a lot left over. However, the 2nd time the amount left in his stomach afterwards was just about half and that is definitely good news.

They are hoping in the next day or two they will be able to remove his IV which is there now just to provide nutrition. As they increase the feedings into his stomach they are able to lower the amount of IV nutrition he needs/gets.

A few other pictures from today:

Good Day

Great news for today. Peanut is back up to 5lbs 3ozs and he's tolerating his feedings well. This means that the medication for the reflux is working and he's not having much of anything left in his stomach after he eats. They have now upped his feeding amount to 20cc's (it was 5 at first). They are also going to switch the reflux medication from IV to straight into his tummy.

I (mom) was extremely excited today because I got to hold him for a feeding. I actually got to hold him twice today which made me very happy.

His bilirubin has gone down so he's no longer under the bililights and as long as it stays down we'll call that one issue down. He's having fewer brady epidsodes and the last 2 that he had he recovered from completely on his own.

Hopefully he'll continue to do so well so that he can come home soon. (Although we're not sure when they are going to attempt bottle feeding and that is an obvious "must" first.

Baby Update #1

Peanut was born on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 8:57 am via c-section. He weighed 5lbs 4ozs and was 17" long. He has beautiful blue eyes and a head full of very blonde hair.

Peanut's issue is that he was born at only 32weeks 6days gestation so he is in NICU.

He does seem to be doing well but has started to develop the "typical" preemie issues one would expect to find at this gestation. He is being tube fed and does have reflux. This causes bradycardia (shallow breathing or forgetting to breathe) which is common for this age. They have started to give him medication for the reflux in hopes that it will help with the episodes as well as get him to start gaining weight.

He has two IVs right now, one in his head and the other in his foot. He is getting all of his nutrition through these two spots. They have two because they don't want to 'blow' either one. So when one looks like it's getting stressed they use the other IV site

As of this morning (Mon April 28) his bilirubin is also up so they are going to be putting him under the lights for the jaundice today. Unfortunately he has lost some weight and as of this morning he weighs 4lbs 15ozs

There is some good news. You should see this kid suck a pacifier! We can't believe he can keep that soothie in his mouth like that! So the hope is that since he's so good with the pacifier that he will take off once it's time to start feeding him with a bottle. The other "good" thing if you want to call it that is that these are the typical issues one would expect for a 32-33 weeker. We're not dealing with any life threatening complications and everything that is "wrong" is going to get better with time and hopefully a little quicker with medical intervention.

Last we heard they were planning on starting the bottle feeds closer to 34 weeks. We've been told that the suck/swallow reflex doesn't typically develop until then and if they try sooner, even if he can do it, it would likely mean he'd be working harder for his food and that could make his volume drop which could mean weight loss. So hopefully by the end of the week they'll be able to start trying bottle feeds so he can get rid of the feeding tube.

We're sad that Little Man can't meet his baby brother until he comes home but we also completely understand the policies for NICU. I'm being discharged this morning and it's completely bittersweet. We absolutely hate leaving Peanut behind but we know he's in great hands. At least Little Man can finally have his mommy back after 2 months of bed rest and complications.

We also have other great news about Little Man -- he's eating!! He's actually taking real bites from food and chewing them. Oh words can't begin to explain how happy we are about that!

BTW: We'll be keeping all of the pictures updated online so email me if you need the link.

Thank you to everyone that has been praying for our family and if you have any questions for us, please don't hesitate to ask!

New Baby Recap

It's been a really long time since the last post.

I realize many of our family and friends are curious (& concerned) about what's going on so this is where I'm going to put all of that info. That way the info will be accurate when you get it. It's just the nature of the grapevine to get at least something wrong after about the 3rd relay.

First a recap of how we got here & then the next post will be baby info!!

In Feb it was found that I have an incompetent cervix and I was put on bed rest. Things have been going well and after the first week of bed rest there had basically been no change in the cervix so we (Me & Hubby at least) assumed all was well.

In fact, on Fri, April 18 I had my weekly visit and ultrasound and it was still status quo.

Then on Monday, April 21 I wasn't feeling so well. I was a little crampy but didn't think it was a big deal. I eventually called the doctor's office because it was persistant, it didn't matter what position I was in it just wasn't going away. I also knew I'd rather be safe than sorry.

After about 45 minutes in triage the nurse finally checked me and was dumbfounded to find that I was already dilated "4 to 5". In literally a matter of minutes I was out of triage, in a labor & delivery room and had 3 nurses working on me. Just a couple of minutes later the doctor was there and checking me and giving the orders on what to give me to try to make labor stop.

I was only 32w 2d (a normal pregnancy is 38-40 weeks) and when the triage nurse told me how far along I was, I just started crying. "It's just too early, this can't be happening."

I'll spare you the details of the unpleasantries that come along with halting labor but the good news is that they were able to postpone delivery for a few days which gave us the opportunity to get the 2 rounds of steroid shots into his lungs. In fact, I was discharged for less than 24 hours due to an error.

Friday morning I woke up and realized I was having contractions. They gave me my scheduled pill for keeping contractions at bay and I realized that wasn't working either. I informed the nurse that they were really starting to hurt and I'd had a bit of show. It just so happened the doctor was there and came to check me.

After checking, she informed me I was already 7 to 8 cm and asked, "Where's dad?" Let me tell ya what, things happened REALLY fast after that!

Since there was no more keeping labor away Hubby headed to the hospital and baby was delivered at 8:57 am.