7-17-08

Blake's nurse Valerie

In his swing...mmmm fingers are good

Swing is a little big for him, that thing at his chin is supposed to be at his tummy

In his bouncer, too small for it

He's looking at the animals hanging down

Vibrations are good.

This is fun, where did the passy go?

Mommy giving Blake his tub bath

Wave hello

Passed out after his bottle

Ok to catch up for yesterday and today, he has gained weight finally. I guess splitting the milk 1/2 and 1/2 with formula is helping. Yesterday he was at 4 lbs 12 oz and tonight he was 4 lbs 15 oz. Yeah! One more ounce and we will hit 5 lbs. Holy cow! Yesterday the doctor lowered his nasal cannula pressure to 1 liter. He started on 2 and now he is down to 1. That is great. Soon he won't be on it anymore....we hope. He had an eye exam yesterday. Ok to explain this there are 3 phases of what he can see. The first one is just what is in front of him, the second is a little bit to the sides and the third he is able to see his peripheral vision. Right now he is at phase 2. So he is moving in the right direction. The second part of the exam looks at stages. There are 4. The more oxygen needs he has the more damage he gets so the farther he moves to stage 4. So Stage one is where you don't see any damage. Stage two you see ridges from scar tissue forming. Stage 3 is basically worse stage 2. Stage 4 is where the retna is damaged to the point of detaching from the eye. He was at a stage 2 where they found scar tissue making ridges. As of yesterday he turned a corner and they could not find any ridges. They had smoothed out and he moved back to stage 1. YEAH! That is great news. Sorry just wanted to explain all the stages. I bought a bouncer and travel swing for Blake to use because he has been waking up more and wants to hang out and not sleep so much. They said I could bring some in so I got two and put them together. Of course the swing was broken and did not work, so I had to take it back. I got a new one that worked and tried it out last night. He liked the swing but his tubes kept getting caught so we tried the bouncer. He loved the vibrations from the bouncer. He just sat there watching us and got mad when I took him out to put him to bed. He is still too small for both of them, but he enjoys sitting in them. He got a bath tonight and has been taking around 50 cc's by bottle's every other feeding. He still gets the others through his feeding tube. I hope they are going to try more bottles soon because he has been doing great. I went to the Internal Specialist today. She said that she is not convinced I have permanent hypertension and wants to research HELLP syndrome a little more. Even though Preeclampsia should leave your system in 6 weeks, there is not very much research to show after symptoms of HELLP syndrome. She said that most people do not survive HELLP syndrome so they don't have much research on what happens after delivery. I feel so lucky and blessed that I am doing well and am still here. My bp is still crazy out of wack but it is better than it was. I had blood work done today and have to go back to see her next week. I have water weight back which stinks since I am not on the diuretics anymore. Rob is coming up tomorrow. We have not seen him in two weeks and I know I miss him like crazy. He is going to get to bottle feed Blake for the first time tomorrow....haha we will see how he does. My brother and sister-n-law are also coming and so are my aunts. He is going to get many visitors. I can't wait to see everyone. He is going to be 12 weeks old on Saturday. Wow time sure has flown.