Saturday - Monday February 11-13 - Life Has a Routine

So there really isn't a whole lot to talk about for the weekend and Monday.  Which is a great thing!  Life is starting have it's own new kind of routine.  This routine is what life in the NICU means for me.  Basically it includes activities such as pumping all the time, eating as much as I can (I just can never seem to get full!), helping with the cares that Samuel goes through (changing diapers, containing him while they take his vitals or change his CPAP from mask to prongs or vice versa), kangarooing with Samuel for at least an hour, sleeping at home, and doing it all over again the next day.

I think the hardest part of this new routine is the part that it is split in between being home and being at the NICU.  When I am home and sleeping for the night I still have to wake up to pump and I don't even have Sam home with me!  So I definitely feel like a typical tired new mother, I just don't have the baby to tote around with me...  I do take naps at the NICU, if I have time (between helping with cares, pumping, eating and having visitors my time is quite short, oh and don't forget I am trying to go walking on occasion for some exercise too!).

Some positives over the last few days:

• Samuel is taking his feedings of 24mL of milk fortified with calories very well.
• He has had fewer A/B spells (apnea-breaks in breathing, bradycardia-drops in heartrate).
• He had another head ultrasound today which is looking even better!  It will be repeated in a few weeks to make sure the ventricles are the correct size still (they sometimes have swelling when there had been bleeding).
• They are talking about changing him from the CPAP (which he's been trying to wiggle out of lately) to a vapo..... which is less intrusive to babies.  We'll see if this happens this week or not, life in the NICU goes day by day!
• He continues to be a very good pooper!  Well, he's just doing great overall!

Friday, February 3 - Head Ultrasound Update

So today was a very eventful day.  As mentioned yesterday, my father-in-law made it into town late last night and after we all got up he and I headed over to the hospital together while Ben finished up doing a few things at the house.  We got there just in time to grab some breakfast and head upstairs.

Sam was doing great!  Well, he really did do great all day.  Soon Ben also arrived.  Our doctor came in and talked to us about a few things.  One was to let us know that his blood count was low, because of that they wanted to do another head ultrasound in order to see if the ventricular hemorrhage had gotten worse and that was the reason for the low blood count.

The other thing he wanted to talk about was what to do about the IV line.  Currently he receives most of his nutrition through IV and my milk only accounts for a small portion of it.  The IV line that he was given originally was through his umbilical cord.  This is a good location for a while, but then there are risks of infection, which is why our hospital tends to try to replace it either with a Peripheral IV or a PICC line.

As mentioned yesterday they attempted (but failed) in establishing a peripheral IV.  The problem with those is that they tend to go bad quickly and can be hard to establish.  PICC lines run risks of infections, but tend to be a more stable line that they could use until he no longer needs the IV.  Ben and I talked it over and decided we would be more comfortable trying the peripheral IV and going from there.

Throughout the day I would kick the boys out so I could pump and that morning as I finished pumping they brought in the ultrasound machine to run the head ultrasound.  That was good because that meant we had a better chance of finding out the results of it by the end of the day.  Since they ordered the ultrasound that morning they weren't sure when it would happen.

That afternoon I went home with the intention of grabbing my knitting and going to knit at Church with the ladies, but I was so exhausted and started crying over the silliest thing, that I decided it was better for me just to nap.

Meanwhile back at the hospital lots of things were happening.  As I wasn't there I am relaying as best as I can remember what I was told.  The nurse was checking Samuel over when she noticed that part of his umbilical cord IV was missing.  Not a good thing and she couldn't tell how long that had been the case.  That meant that we had to go from talking about what we wanted to do about the IV to doing something about it right then.

They found a lady on staff that is really good with peripheral IVs and brought her in to do one on Sam. Ben said he and his Dad said a prayer while she was working and God sure answered it.  She was able to establish one successfully on the first try!  Thanks be to God!

Right at that point I was also feeling somewhat antisocial so I kicked the boys out again.  My younger brother, AJ was also coming into town and they wanted to grab supper with him.  I decided to stay and eat the food at the hospital (which is actually pretty good) so I could keep pumping on schedule.  Thus I was able to settle into a nice relaxed evening.  So about the time that they were getting supper, I was kangarooing with Sam.  I just absolutely love that time with him!

Later that evening my cousin, Anna, stopped in for the night and we all headed back to the house.  We then spent a bunch of time talking before finally heading to bed around 12:30.  It was overall a good long day.