5-20-08

Blake got a blood transfusion today. We went in this morning to see him and the poor baby had a new IV where he was getting the blood. He was pulling a rollercoaster move this morning with his O2. When we went back later tonight for me to kangaroo he was doing better. He did good the entire time I held him and didn't d-sat till the very end when I went to move him. He slept the entire time and really didn't wiggle much. The nurse said that she figured out why he was so wiggly the night before while on my chest. She changed his diaper and found he had a very poopy one. So, apparently me holding his bottom with a poopy butt was irritating him. He does not like dirty diapers. My poor baby has pooped so much continuously, he has managed to irritate his bottom so much that it is now raw. They have started putting a barrier cream on it that crystalizes and protects that area from staying raw and allows it to heal. It was so raw that his skin started to crack and bleed. I feel so bad for him. No wonder he was hurting last night. Oh the BIG news of the night.....he is up to 2 lbs 2 oz. YEAH!!!!! We have hit the 2 lb mark. He actually hit it yesterday but we did not find out till today. So he gained 2 ounces in one day. I am so excited. His legs have become so much more defined now. He actually has some fat and muscle on them. The nurses are saying he is very very strong. He is deffinitely testing them out. He pushes against my hands and the nurses. After he gets his assessments they flip him back over on his tummy. He usually sticks his legs straight out and pushes really hard. A couple of times it has taken both the nurse and I to bend his little knees so we can get him settled and laying down. He is a little stubborn toot. It is amazing how big he looks to me now. I know he isn't by much, but 14 ounces gained is a lot. We compared the picture of him holding my finger on the second day he was born to the one we took this past week or two, and there is such a difference. His body is starting to catch up with his head. He is beginning to look like a baby and not a little gnome. He is getting more blonde hair also. Think he is going to be a cotton top like his daddy was. His hands and feet are very big now. Well big for him. I just can not believe how much he has filled out. I am also excited because my wonderful aunts are throwing me a baby shower this weekend in Kerville for my family, and the cousins (guys) are going to go golfing so Robert will get to have a boys day. Most likely we are just going to drive up for the day, but I know I can trust the hospital and I know it would be good for me to spend some time with my family for one night. It is a tug of war with my heart. It is going to be hard to leave him even just for one day, but I know he is in good hands and I can call all day anytime to check on him. Plus of course I will make Rob drive me back first thing in the morning Sunday if we stay the night. Bright and early. lol. I guess we will just have to wait and see how I feel Saturday. Ok now that I have blabbed on and on, I hope tomorrow is going to be a better day for Blake since it is shot day. Uggggh :( But it is also bath night tomorrow evening so that will be better since I can see his little face.

5-19-08

Well he got his first shot today and boy he was kranky the rest of the day. The entire day he was unhappy. Everytime I tried to talk to him or hold his finger he pushed it away and started to desat. He never does that. He is always highsatting when I talk to him. He did not want anyone talking to him or touching him. I hope it won't be like this every time he gets a shot. That is every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It broke my heart. I felt so bad for him. So when I went to Kangaroo hold him tonight it took him a while to be ok with it. He was kind of all over the place today with his oxygen levels. The entire time I was holding him he was squirming and pushing and grabbing at me. I had red marks in my chest from where he was pushing his knees into me. His levels were low when we first started then came up and stayed ok for a while. Then he would bounce back and forth on how he was doing. He then highsatted for a little bit longer and then dropped to where he was just not doing very well so we put him back in his bed. I got to do my whole time holding him so I was happy. I felt so bad for him. He moaned and groaned and when we moved him back to his bed he started crying. He cried when we got him out and then when we put him up. He does not liked to be moved, that is for sure. I hope tomorrow is better for him and he is more comfortable. Oh my mom did get to hold him though. The nurse got everything ready and then let her be the one who took him out of the incubator and put him in my hands. She was so excited. She has been having to life my wheel chair so much in and out of the truck, she has managed to give herself bruises on her legs from where it hits her. I am going to have to buy her a day at the spa lol. Anyway, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for him. I just want him to feel comfortable and safe.

5-18-08

Robert went back home today. It is hard when he leaves but I know he will be back next weekend. He was pretty stable through out the day. One of his doctor came and told us that they were going to start him on Vitamin A shots three times a week. Poor little thing he doesn't even have enough fat on him for the shots. They are going to put it in his upper legs. He is also developing Chonic Lung Disease also known as CLD. There are different stages they said and he is at the beginning right now. If it progresses it lead to permanent issues for later on in his life. Since his little body is not making red blood cells, they are going to start him on a medicine that helps his body to make them that way he does not have to have all the blood transfusions and it will help his lungs to begin to heal and keep the CLD from progressing. We hope all this works. While we were there I went to go pump and I took my finger away from him cause he was holding it and high satting and he immediately started dropping so I had Robert put his hand back in Blake as ok then. He was happy with his daddy. After Robert went home we went back to see him in the evening. I got to kangaroo hold him again. He did so much better this time. He stayed high satting almost the entire time. I guess he knew when his time was up because his oxygen levels dropped and he started getting fussy. He was done and wanted to go back to bed. Then after the nurse let my mom (his nana) change his diaper. She was so excited. So she changed the first one...took her a while lol it has been a long time since she has changed a diaper. She kept getting the tabs stuck to the diaper. So she put on the new one and went to close it and he peepee'd on her finger. I went to grab the diaper to help her with the tab and stuck my finger right in it. Nice right. I quickly grabbed a new diaper and she put it on with out getting hit this time. That is about it for last night.

5-17-08 GREAT NIGHT!

Wow I thought today was going to be uneventfull. Boy was I wrong. He had a good day with only a few apneas. Nothing much happened this afternoon. We came back and the Ronald McDonald house was having a fundraiser where 32 bicyclists rode 100 miles for the charity and arrived here where they blocked off the parking lot and had a bbq, bounce house for the kids, fire department, many many people and volunteers that were getting tours through out the house as well as a caricature artist who by the way drew me and Rob and it looks nothing like us...lol we look like really sexy super heros. I will have to take a picture and put it on here. So this evening we went back to see Blake expecting a really quiet night. When we got there he was sleeping and his nurse asked me if I had gotten to hold him yet. I told her just inside the incubator. She said that she was going to try and get an order from the doctor for me to be allowed to do the kangaroo hold (where you sit in the chair and just hold the baby. No rocking or rubbing.) Skin on skin thing to get them used to touch. She was going to try and get it for the next night. His nurse is the same one he has had on the weekend nights since he was born....wow can you believe he is 3 weeks old already. Anyway, her last night is tomorrow night because her husband wants her to work closer to home. Blake is the last preemie she is going to have because the babies she will work with from now on are full term babies. So she said that he will hold a special place with her. Luckily for me she brought her camera. Go figure the one time I leave my camera at home is when I need it the most. She pulled down the sides to his bed and raised the top and took tons of pictures with us and Blake. She is supposed to email them to me so I can have them to post and print. I thought that was going to be the highlight of my night. The doctor that is working this weekend walked by and she said she was going to ask her if it would be ok for me to do the kangaroo hold at some point this weekend. So she asks and the doctor tells her yes he is stable enough right now that if we wanted we could do the kangaroo hold. So I am thinking yeah tomorrow I will get to hold him. I can't wait right. His nurse looked at me and said well we have approval and he is doing good, do you want to do it now? OMG!!! I was so excited and so nervous. So I got to hold him for 30 minutes. Longest 30 mins of my life. lol. I was so nervous but had do keep calm so that he would be calm and ok with his oxygen sats. Rob had to hold his tubes and I had to hold him just right. I had to strip off my shirt to nothing accept my nursing bra which I had to pull down and put on my hoodie so I had some warmth and she put him on my chest and wrapped him up in blankets and my jacket. I had to sit just right so that his tubes would not move around. If they did he started de-satting so I would have to adjust so he was ok. Rob and I worked together to make it all work. He only de-satted really low one time where she had to turn up his oxygen levels. The rest of the time he was either high satting or normal...most the time closer to normal. Needless to say I did my best to keep calm so he would be ok, but it was so hard because everything had to be just right. I think I was more in shock than anything. She did tell me that I will get to hold him again tomorrow as long as he is doing ok. He opened his eyes a couple times to look at Robert and then went back to sleep while I was holding him. After my time was up and his nurse put him back in his incubator, Robert got to change his poopy diaper. He gave his daddy a nice big present. Rob is getting good at changing him. lol he better get in the practice. There will be plenty more where those came from. That just completely made my night. I was late getting back and taking my meds so my bp was high but i checked it 30 mins and then 1 hr after and it went back down to normal so everything is good to go. This has been a great night! Oh and I think he is going to be a cottom top. He still has some brown and blonde hair mixed together, but his eye lashes and eye brows are white blonde and he is getting in normal blonde hair on his head. Just hope he doesn't keep both brown and blonde...well he would have his own original highlights if that happened.

5-16-08

Suctioning time...they are doing his mouth and throat here.

Awake waving arms

Daddy and Blake

Big Yawnnnnnn! Big mouth lol

Mommy and Blake

We went and saw Blake today. He had one of my favorite nurses there watching him. We got to spend about one and a half hours there with him. He was having issues with his tummy again and kept lifiting his tummy and butt all the way off the bed and grunting like he was trying to make a dirty diaper. When his nurse went to do his assessment and get him ready for his suctioning, she checked his diaper and there was only like a tiny spot of poop on there. She started laughing and said "All that work for this?" The respiratory therapist took the tape off his face because they change it out every day to couple days to keep it fresh. So we got to see his entire face. His poor little nostrils are so big right now because of the cpap tubes. They said that the nostrils will go down once he gets off the cpap. I started laughing and said I hope so because he looks like a little piggy right now. lol Right when she was taking off his tape, he decided he would help her out and put his hand up to the tubes and pushed them out of his nose so fast that he threw the tubes at her hands that were right next to the holes of the incubator. All of our jaws dropped and then we started laughing. Guess he doesn't like the tubes. lol I don't blaim him, I wouldn't either. He opened his eyes during suctioning and did good for a little bit and then she had to bag him because he was dropping his sats for a little bit. He wouldn't take any breaths. Normally they just put the bag over his face and he takes breaths of the oxygen, but they had to actually squeeze the bag continuously to push the breaths in. Then once he finally started breathing on his own he did good from that point on. He stayed awake for a long time and just watched us. We were able to take a lot of pictures. They turned off the lights so he could open his eyes with out it being too bright. The first time I tried to take a picture I had turned off the flash, but the little orange light still comes on right before to let you know it is taking and he did not like that at all. He flung his arms, squinched his eyes really tight and whined. He tried to roll himself on his side. After he calmed down, he stayed awake and let us take his pictures with his eyes open. He has also had less apneas today. Only two. YEAH! They have been bad ones but we are down on the number...at least today we are. His doctor also said that he has not had any more blood in his stool, his x-rays looked good, and he has a little less fluid in his lungs. He has also gained weight and is at 1 lb 14 oz. Robert said he looks so much bigger than last weekend. He is starting to fill out his skin. His hands and feet are so much bigger. I can't believe it has already been three weeks! Just two more ounces and we will be at two pounds. woohooo! I left for a little bit to go pump and let my mom come in with Robert (we can only have two people at a time in) and when I came back, Robert made the comment that he got really emotional while I was gone. He was holding Blake's passy in his mouth and Blake had a nice grip on Robert's finger. He was watching him and realized "We have a baby boy" and started to get tears in his eyes. I came back and could see he was just totally aww struck and in love with his baby. He is such a good daddy and loves him so much. I am so glad I was able to give him a little boy in case I can't have another baby. There is a very high chance that I will have preclampsia again if I get pregnant and because it was so severe this time it can be again. My doctor recommended someone who is a great doctor in Houston that will watch me closely and give me advise on what we should do when it comes to that point if we try again or not. Since I came so close to dying this time I am kinda scared about what might happen if I become pregnant again. I am just glad that Robert did not have to make that choice this time. The doctor told him right before we went in for surgery that he might have to. Thank you Lord that he didn't and we are both ok. My blood pressure has been all over the place today. I finally let my mom call my doctor and he said that if it goes any higher than what it was earlier to call him right away. One minute it is low and the next it is elevated. It goes up and down depending when I take my meds and if I am standing or not. We are watching it closely because I do not want to go back in. Dad if you are reading this I rested today and took at 3 hr nap... Robert and mom made me. My doctor told my mom to sit on me if she had to. So we are about to go back over and see Blake here in a second. I am going to add new pics to the photobucket site as well as put some on here. Thank you for all the prayers, they are helping so much!

5-15-08

Sorry I did not get a chance to post last night. So, I am doing it now for Thursday. So a lot to talk about. Crazy day. First off we got slammed Wednesday night with a horrible hail and lightning storm. I layed down to go to sleep and saw out the corner of the window massive lightning, so I turned on the weather channel because another storm had just gone through Cedar Park a little bit north of where we were and I didn't know if it was part of that one or seperate. As soon as I turn the tv on they are telling everyone in our area to take cover and get away from the windows. So of course the first thing I do is look out the window to see what is going on. lol. I went and woke up my mom asking if we had anything important we needed out of the car just in case. She said she was going to try and move it because of the hail we were supposed to get. I told her if it was bad when she got downstairs not to go out. And of course by the time she got downstairs it was hitting everywhere around us so she decided to leave it be. Way too dangerous to even go outside. With in 5 minutes of her getting back upstairs to our room we were getting blasted with massive amounts of hail. My room and the hallway in front of our room is all glass windows so it was pretty freaky with all the hail that was hitting it. Since it was coming in from the side of the building we were very lucky to not get any windows broken, but it sure sounded like it was going to at any minute. Scared the crud out of me. It knocked out the lights in the parking lot across the street. Winds of the storm in downtown were 48 miles an hour, but since they built the Ronald McDonald House where the old airport used to be there is nothing but flat land around us so we got 60 mile and hour winds. Yea pretty freaky. Scared the crap out of me. As soon as it was over, I of course called to check on Blake. The nurse said he never even flinched. That is so Robert's son! Made me fell much better and I could finally fall asleep.

You should see my poor mom trying to lift my wheel chair in and out of the car anytime we go somewhere. That thing is so heavy so I hope she doesn't kill her back doing it. I keep teasing her that she is going to loose weight and get a good work out wihle doing it.

Robert got in last night around 11pm. He had an interesting trip up here. He git a deer on the way here. He got very lucky in that it did only a small amount of damage to his truck and that he was not hurt.

Well we finally got to go see Blake at 1:00 in the morning. His nurse was the one that I got upset with the other evening because of his oxygen levels. I decided to give her another chance because I thought maybe she was having a bad night. Everyone has a bad day once in a wihle. She was much better. She is just the type of person that is all about following a strict routine. Where the other nurses are very accomidating to our schedule, she is not as much. And that is ok because she is doing her job. When i called she told me that they were not going to do his bath at 11:30 like I was told we could do and that is the same time we have always done. She told me she was feeding him at 10:30 and couldn't bath him after she did that. I ws upset because I was trying to explain to her that Robert was coming in and wouldn't be there till 11:00 pm and that since the NICU is closed at 10:00-11:30 we couldn't come any earlier anyway. She said she could do it at 1:30 am and I said that was fine we would be there. I called to check on him at 11:00 and she apologized for upsetting me earlier. She explained that because his feedings the day before had been changed and pushed back, if she were to hold off an hour to feed him till we got there for his bath, his glucose level would drop and we would have a really hard time. I let her know that I appreciated her explaining it to me and I was more comfortable knowing why she wanted to change it. I told her I do better once people explain things to me so that I know what is going on at all times. That way I do not worry. So now as of right now I am much more comfortable with her.

We went for his bath. He did a good job but got mad because he got his bath and then a suctioning right after. The doctor had ordered him an enama, I guess he was constipated. I felt so bad for him, it looked really uncomfortable getting it. They use a little syringe to do it, but he is so tiny....owww. The nurse cleaned his poopy diaper and a few minutes later he gave her a nice gift again. He then did another one, and another one, and another one and another.....about six times till he was finally done. He cleaned himself out that is for sure. We couldn't stop laughing because every time she got him cleaned he pooped all over himself again. After she finished, he kept trying to open his eyes but the overhead lights were in his eyes. Robert stepped in front of the incubator to block the lights from shining on his face. He looked up at Robert, it was so sweet.
Ok now i am going to start on a new blog for tonight.

5-14-08 Night

I got released around 6:45 this evening. Before that I went to see Blake. His nurse had just finished assessing him and said she had hoped I would have already been there so I could have helped. Then she asked me if I would like to hold him in the incubator. I was so excited but I was afraid he had already been stimulated too much. She said if he didn't like it we would stop. So she picked him up and placed him in my hands inside the incubator. He put his hand up next to his face and just slept. Then after a little while he started to open his eyes. He got his right eye open but not his left. I think the light was too bright over head so she pulled his blanket that covers the incubator over it and he opened both his eyes. He let me hold him for a good 5 minutes and then he decided that was enough and started getting fussy. As usual he high satted while I was there. I don't know if I said it before but my doctor decided he wanted me to use a wheel chair now that I am out of the hospital for about three weeks. He says that my bp drops when I am up walking around and he does not want me to relapse. He wants me to rest as much as possible. I feel so silly having my mom push me around everywhere in a wheel chair. Don't get me wrong it is a nice wheel chair that is like the smooth riding Lexus version of wheel chairs accept for the fact that it is not motorized lol. My poor mom is getting a work out having to push me everywhere. It was ok for me to be in the wheel chair at the hospital but it just feels wierd outside of that. The doctor said that if the bottom number (diastolic) gets over 90 I have to go b ack in. So we will be watching to make sure it does not because I do not want to be readmitted. I will be resting a lot so that does not happen! I called this evening to check on Blake and he has been about the same on his Oxygen (all over the place). He did however have more blood in his stool which is not good but they are monitoring it and are going to take another xray in the morning as well as some more blood work to check for a new infection.

I posted new pics on photobucket if you would like to go on there and check.