7-7-08

I walked in this morning and they had moved Blake's bed to another spot. It scared the crap out of me. We have been in the same spot for 10 weeks and then all of a sudden he was not there anymore. They had only moved him down 2 spots but it freaked me out to not see him there. They had to make room because they have a mom on bed rest that has 24 week twins that might deliver any minute. They are trying to hold her off but you now how that goes. I found out the hard way. So he is in a different spot that is a little more cramped. The doctor came over and saw him while I was holding him. They changed some of his meds yesterday, took him off some of his meds and changed his milk fortifier to Neosure. Since they had made a lot of changes yesterday they waited till today to pull his feeding tube up to his tummy. He has been doing ok with it that way. He has been having reflux and burping a lot. I have to be careful when I pick him up now, because if I move him too much he burbs up his milk everywhere. I guess he just needs time to adjust to having milk in his belly. We are hoping he gets better with it in the next few days so they can try feeding him by bolis (all his food at once instead of continuous). He finished his antibiotics for his ear infection today and got his IV taken out this evening. We bough a mobile to hang over his crib and he loves it. He watches the black and white circles turn and just focuses in on them as best he can and loves the music as well. It is actually nice classical calming music and not annoying like other mobiles usually are. His head has grown so his ears are smaller now, they fit his head better. When he was born his ears looked huge because his head was so small, but now he has grown into them and they look normal. He is still 15.75 inches long and now weighs 4 lbs 6.6 oz. He will be 26 weeks gestational tomorrow. Wow I can not believe how long we have been here, which means his hospital bill is really really expensive, haha.

7-5-08 10 weeks old

No big changes right now. He gained weight and got up to 4.5 lbs and then lost some weight and then gained again today and he is up to 4 lbs 6 oz. He has been doing good and is getting used to his new crib. Rob came in this weekend and has gotten to see and hold Blake a lot so far. I keep itching to get him back in my arms but I give Rob his time with his baby boy. They are going to take his feeding tube out of his intestines tomorrow and put it in his tummy. Tonight he got a bath. While he was still naked Rob was holding him while I got his diaper out and his blanket so we could get him dressed. I was joking and told Rob to be careful or he would get pee'd on. Well apparently Blake took it to heart but instead pooped all over Robert. Luckily he had a blanket under him so Robert only got half of it on his arms and clothes. But Blake had to get wiped down again because his back was covered in it. His nurse and I got a really good laugh out of it. I told Rob he has officially been christened as a daddy. They are going to check all his blood levels tomorrow to see if they can wean him off of any of the meds and additives that he gets daily.

7-3-08

Today was a very good day. They moved Blake into an open crib. He has been holding his own temperature. While in his isolet he was getting too warm even with the temp turned down so they are trying him in the open crib to see how he does. So far today he has held his temp, but they are keeping his isolet close by just in case he drops too low. The doctor said don't be surprised if he has to go back in, but they said that about him possibly having to go back on his cpap and he proved them wrong. They said he might stay around the same weight for the first few days because he uses all his energy to keep his temp. Right now he is still 4 lbs 3 oz. He lost 10 grams last night but that is ok. They are going to try and move his feeding tube from his intestines into his stomach this weekend. They will see how he does and if he does not aspirate milk into his lungs they will leave it there. Hopefully if he does well then in the next week or two he will get to start bottle feeding. He is at 35 1/2 weeks gestational and I asked the doctor if he thought Blake would be in the hospital past 40 weeks. He thinks Blake will get out before his 40 week mark, so that is just 4 1/2 weeks away. Yeah oh my gosh I can not believe how fast time has gone by. He is already 2 months old and will be 10 weeks Saturday. Little man has been pooping like a champ. When I came in this morning, his outfit had been changed from the one I put him in last night after his bath. Apparently when his nurse was changing his diaper, he decided he was not done and pooped everywhere. His outfit was covered in it so this morning when I picked it up to put in a bag so I could take it with me to wash, it was hard as a rock where he had gone. Yuck! Wow bet he feels better lol. Ok now that I have grossed everyone out haha sorry. Well daddy is coming tomorrow and has not seen Blake in two weeks. He has changed a lot in two weeks. He is filling out and looking more and more like a baby. My Aunt Cindy and her friend Dee came yesterday to see us, they could not believe how big he has gotten and how different he looks. He looks so big wrapped up in his blanket but then when you lay him down and unwrap him, you can see he is still so tiny. It was nice to see them and get to visit with them. Blake has been awake a lot more now too. He also still has his IV in his foot (they moved it from his scalp to his foot) he finished his ear drops last night and hopefully won't be on his IV antibiotics very much longer. He d-sats a little bit since he is trying to adjust to everything new, but he has been holding his own. Very proud of the little turkey.

7-1-08

We are at 4 lbs. 3 oz. He gained 2 oz over night. I guess it is really helping him gain weight by having me split the milk in to the fore milk that contains no fat and the hind milk that is all fatty. They are still giving him just the hind milk right now. It seems to be puttin weight on him. He actually has some little chubby cheeks and his abdominal area is filling in nicely as well. Before his chest was caved in and you could see his ribs and his tummy poked out. Now, it seems to all be evened out, you can still see his ribs some but not nearly as bad as before. I had to change his diaper like 3 times in a row, because each time I changed it, he pooped again. Poor things tummy must have been hurting. He is doing much better now when I hold him. He has gotten used to the nasal cannula. While I was holding him he turned his head towards my chest and tried to latch on to my t-shirt several times. It made me laugh every time he did it. The doctor said that he could go ahead and try to root and latch whenever I kangaroo held. We are hoping that by the end of the week or next week sometime they will move his feeding tube back into his stomach. Then once it is there they will see how he does. If he handles it well we can start him on bottles soon. Keep your fingers crossed. So he is gestationally 35 weeks today. He is the size of a 33 weeker bc he was two weeks behind when he was born but he is finally putting on some weight. He was fussy for a little bit so I picked him up and started patting his back a little. Wow he let out a huge belch. It was loud enough that his nurse who was sitting two isolets down heard him. She and I both started laughing. This evening I tried doing the whole nuzzling, sucking thing with Blake and he just was not having it, he wanted to suck on his passy instead. I always swore I would never breast feed because it grossed me out, but now I am chaning my mind. It isn't as bad as I thought it would be. He wanted that passy so bad, so I tried to trick him by putting the passy in front of me, got him to suck on it and then snuck it away real quick so he had me instead. Yea that worked all of 5 seconds till he figured it out and threw a fit. Lol he is a smart little cookie. So we will keep trying. Takes practice right. Besides he can't feed yet, so it is just getting him used to it from what the doctor said. Oh they had to move his IV because his veins in his arms were not holding. They put it in his scalp above his forehead. Ouch, it looks painful but doesn't seem to bother him any. Ok so I think I am all caught up for the entire weekend.

6-30-08 4 lbs!

He hit 4 lbs 1 oz today. He is doing great on high flow and is showing the doctors he does not want to go back on cpap. He only had 1 A&B today. He is still on the antibotics for his ear infection but there is no growth on the culture so that is good. That means it did not spread to his blood and they were able to contain it to just his ear canal. His blood platelets are low so they are going to keep him on the antibiotics a little longer to make sure they keep the infection contained and kill it out of his system. That is about it for today. He is doing good.

6-29-08

The shower went great. I got to see all my friends and family. I got some really cool things and go to see Blake's new little girlfriend Hannah that my good friend Felicia had. She was precious and was being passed from person to person. Everyone wanted to have a chance to hold her. She is a normal size newborn but compared to Blake looks so big. It is too funny how newborns look huge compared to preemies. So the doctor called and said that the surgeon thinks it could be flluid instead of a hernia. It is too hard to tell for sure right now so they are going to watch it over the next couple of weeks. Mom drove back with us to Austin so she could see Blake. We spent all night up there at the hospital. She got to hold him and while she talked to him he was just smiling away. We got some really good pictures out of it. When I was putting him up I changed his diaper and he gave me a nice present and pooped and pee'd on me. After I cleaned up the lovely poop, I was in the middle of pulling his tabs down to secure the new clean diaper when he launched a surprise attack with the pee. My hand was cupped over him and he drenched my entire palm along with my sweater. He weighed in at 3 lbs 15 oz and is 15.75 inches long. We came back later that night so I could hold him and he was in a great mood. Every time I kissed his nose he thought it was the funniest thing and tried to laugh. He smiled so big for us and was making us laugh by making faces. I think we finally got to bed around 3 am and had to get back up at 5 to take mom to the airport to leave for Ohio. He is really enjoying being off the cpap and likes the nasal canular. So much easier on him.

6-27-08 High Flow!!!

Ok let's see I am going to try and remember everything to update for Friday. Blake was 3 lbs 11 oz. He developed an ear infection, his ear drum blew so they started him on an IV and gave him antibiotics. They found what they think is a hernia. His intestines are in his testicles. There is a surgeon that is coming to look at it. If it is a hernia, he will have to have surgery soon. Normally you can push a hernia back up into through the hole it came down through, but this one is not doing it. They took him off cpap and put him on the high flow nasal canular. The doctor said not to be surprised if they have to put him back on cpap, because of his apneas, so they kept the cpap machine next to his bed just in case. I held him twice during the day after he was put on the high flow. He did ok the first time but the second time he had a harder go of it. Guess he was still trying to adjust to the canular. He just did not want to be held and let me know it. So after I left there my best friend Tiffany and I drove to Houston so we could make it to the shower that next day. We left at 11:30 pm, yeah we are crazy. We drank very large glasses of coffee to stay awake. Of course we get there around 2:30 am and the first thing I want to do is work on the house and I could not go to bed till I got some things accomplished. So around 5 in the morning we finally went to bed. Oh and he does have a little birth mark that the nurses call stork bites. It is in between his eye brows. The cpap tape pulled on his skin and some blood vessels burst leaving the mark. The doctor said it should go away with in a few months...we hope. And hopefully now his nostrels will get to heal now that the cpap tubes are out. He still has the little canular tubes but they are not as big.