Pictures

Go to www.myspace.com/jannapokluda to see recent pics of Blake. More coming soon. Just click on the picture of him at the top of the page there and it will take you to photo albums.

9-25-08...one day away from 5 months old!

Blake will be 5 months old tomorrow. I can't believe how fast time has gone by. He went to see his pediatrician yesterday and weighed in at 10 lb. 6 oz. and was 20.5 inches long. The boy has some major legs. His muscles are so big in his legs and arms. The doctor said you can already tell he is going to have a sports build like his dad. He got his second round of immunizations yesterday. Oh by the way we are now finally back home...yeah.. Houston we have electricity! Now we just have to replace our fence. OK so he got his shots which of course he cried and made the most pitiful face so I started crying because I hate to see him in pain. After that appointment he went to see his cardiologist who gave him the all clear on his blood pressure. It is finally back down to normal. So after a long day visiting doctors we were headed home when his apnea alarm went off. It beeped a couple times so I started to look for a place to pull over, then it went off so I thought OK he is breathing again but was still trying to find somewhere to pull over. A few seconds later it started going off again. This time it didn't stop. I freaked and sped up cutting people off trying to find somewhere, anywhere I could pull over. There was no where. So I started doing like 100 to get to a place I saw up in front of me. I pulled in, slammed it in gear, jumped out to get to the back and he was so not breathing. His face was pale white and his lips were turning a bluish purple. I did everything I could to get him to breathe again. He finally did and started getting color back in his lips and face, but now he did not want to wake up. Boy did I make him mad rubbing his legs just to wake him up. Talk about giving me a heart attack. Once he was stable and I felt better I made sure he had NO blankets and turned the ac on high right on him so he stayed awake. haha. No more deep sleeps for him. He slept the entire rest of the day at home with me hovering over him constantly. I am so glad he is still on that monitor other wise who knows what would have happened. He is feeling much better today and went to see his Pulmonologist...one more of the many specialists he sees. We love his Pulmonologist Dr. Robertson....even though he is an Aggie....I am sorry, we love all his doctors, we just like giving Dr. Robertson a hard time because he is an Aggie and he hates it when Blake wears his burnt orange outfits. haha. So we went and saw him. He said for sure one more month on oxygen. If he continues to have these spells he is putting Blake back in the hospital, so I told Blake NO MORE SPELLS! PLEASE! He also said that Blake's jaw sits back a little farther than most babies and that could be one factor causing him a harder time breathing. He is going to keep an eye on it and if he notices it not growing or getting any better he might have to have surgery....ahhhhh no please. My brother had the same issue and had surgery when he was in junior high. That was so horrible for him. I do not want to see Blake go through the same thing. Well that is about it for now. Oh I found out my best friend Tiffany is going to have a little BOY! Whoohooo a playmate for Blake. I think she is due in February or March. All my other friends have had girls so he has plenty of girlfriends and now a best bud to add to it. He is also doing good with his contacts. He goes for his checkup on those on Monday. I am falling more and more in love with this little man every day.

Catching up to 9-20-08

Ok I hope I can remember everything, but I am sure I can not. Blake was in the PICU as you know and was released that following Monday with Oxygen ( he was in there a total of one week). The doctors gave us the ok so we were able to fly to Ohio for Labor Day weekend to see my parents. He did wonderful on the plane ride. It was of course crazy because we had to get his oxygen through the airlines for the plane, have the one waiting at the airport for when we got there and so on. But he slept the whole time except to eat. The flight attendant gave him his first pair of wings....even though he is already our little angel (aaahh) Blake made many rounds visiting people. He got to see all the super State Farm employees that work with my mom and have been praying for him. My mom's office had gifts for him which were of course adorable and they got to see and hold him. He then went to meet all the wonderful people at my dad's lab who have also been praying for him. They threw us a surprise baby shower which was a lot of fun. He was a very popular man there. Thank you to everyone at State Farm and Grove City Medical Center for everything you did for us and for the wonderful presents and love you gave our little man. So we then went shopping...whoohoo at the Carter's outlet by the lab and used the gift cards we got at the shower. Wow that was fun, we got so much great stuff. My parents had to ship it back to us since we couldn't fit it all in our suitcases. lol. So that Sunday we had Blake christened at my parents church. It was really nice. Blake wore my christening gown that my mom had made for me when I was a baby. Robert wasn't too sure about putting Blake in a dress :) My grandmother got to also meet her first Great-grandchild who gave him lots of love hugs and kisses and also got to feed him. My parents also spent a lot of time with Blake. My mom sang to him and told him stories and my dad and him had starring contests. My brother and sister-in-law also got plenty of practice with him. I told them he was birth control haha. Everyone said my dad was glowing when he was around Blake...that is good. They also gave us a break a couple nights and took shifts with my brother and sister-in-law taking care of Blake throughout the night. What a blessing in disguise. We got some much needed rest. Blake went to his first fair at the Canfield Fair in Ohio where we compared his size to a thousand pound pumpkin, guess who won. All in all it was a wonderful trip. Oh before we left he weighed in at 8 lbs 12 oz.

Now when we got back to Houston he got his contacts. They showed me how to put them in and take them out. He of course hated every minute of it and wanted me to stop. I have to take them out every week, clean them and put them back in. It is a chore and takes one of us to hold his arms down and the other to put them in. And of course, I have to be the bad guy putting them in because Rob doesn't want to do it. Thanks...haha He has been seeing a lot better though. I have still caught his eyes crossing a little bit from time to time but it should start to get better.

Blake is now under the care of ECI...Early Childhood Intervention Team. They are going to visit him once a week for 30 minutes to help him work on skills that he is behind on. Since he was so premature, he is lacking some of the skills he should have, mainly his fine and gross motor skills. We are currently working on rolling over, tracking with his eyes, grasping things and responding to voices. Poor thing, we are doing so much to him: giving meds, messing with eyes to put in and take out his contacts, taping, pulling tape off and re-taping his oxygen tube to his face, putting his monitor around his chest....he has had enough and he tells us so regularly.

Thanks to hurricane Ike we had a mandatory evacuation for La Porte. We went to Kerrville and spent time with my aunt's. Thank you thank you Aunt Cindy for taking us in for a week. I know I have said it but it was very generous of you. We really appreciate all you and Uncle Robert did....and you too Aunt Jan. Blake started getting a little sick while we were there and started vomiting a lot again. He also had a slight fever. He is doing better now. He has been alert a lot more during the day and evening too. This next week he will go to see all his specialist that he didn't get to see due to the hurricane. We got very lucky with our house. All we lost was our fence. Thank you Lord. We are still however out of electricity and came home tonight and are staying at my mother-in-laws so Rob can go back to work Monday. His job has been so wonderful working with us. We were not able to come back sooner because we have to have some kind of electricity for Blake's monitors and we had to have oxygen delivered to Kerrville since we ran out. What a mess! Marie's power just came on a day or two ago so now we have a place to stay in Houston and they are starting to get stores open as well. Oh, and we also drove down to Concan to visit my family there on the Frio. If you ever go there make sure you visit Frio Dry Fifty Store and Neal's Cafe. Oh yea I almost forgot, my aunts sent Rob and I to dinner and they babysat Blake for a couple hours so we could have an evening alone. How sweet was that. Thank you!

Wow I can't believe in 6 days Blake will be 5 months old. Holy cow where has the time gone.
Oh and another update on my friend's little girl Isabelle that is still at St. David's Nicu. She is doing fantastic. She has come a long way and I believe has just been moved to a nasal cannula like what Blake is on. Her lungs have improved drastically and she is just as feisty as Blake. They are able to hold her daily now and she is growing like a weed. She is still fighting infections so please still keep them in your prayers.

Since staying at my aunt's house the last week, Blake started staying up during the evening, going to bed at around 12:30 am and sleeping till 5:30-6:00. Some nights he still does every three hours but for one period of time each night he sleeps a good bit. I just hope he continues this trend once we get back in our house. He is also holding his head up a lot better on his own. He still is a bobble head lol but he is getting better at it. We have started him with about 30 mins of tummy time in the evenings for him to work on his head, rolling over and other motor skills. He hates it. Of course spoiled man wants to be held. Rob and I have to go clean the house and remove debris tomorrow while Marie babysits.

Once I can charge my camera, I will download pictures. We tried to weigh him on the scale of our own the other night and he was somewhere in between 9-10 lbs. We will see this week when he goes to the doc.

Will update soon

Sorry I have not updated. It has been very crazy around here. We are currently in Kerrville due to mandatory evacuation for La Porte from Ike. Blake is almost 10 lbs, still on oxygen and being a bohemian! lol I promise I will fill in with pics and details very soon! Thanks for your patience

8-23-08 weekend

The PICU ward here is brand new, so they don't have that many patients. When we first got here it was Blake and one other girl. A few more kids came and went during the week but now he is the only one. This afternoon there were three nurses on so he was getting pretty spoiled. He has been holding down his feeds this week. He had one or two large vomits at the beginning of the week so they knew I wasn't making stuff up. The nurses were joking saying he was having excercist projectile vomits. The only thing missing was the head spinning. All his tests came back pretty good. They think he might have had a viral infection that wore out of his system by the time we got him in and settled. They also think his meds were causing havic with his reflux. He has seen many specialists. His Pulminary specialist came and saw him and took him off his Theophllyne. That was the med that helped him with his caffeine level and respiratory additive. With out it in his system he began having apneas. He thinks it was making his reflux worse. A side effect of the meds is hypertension and aggitation of his reflux. So his bp has been better with it out of his system. They did an oxi test the night before and found he does a lot of periodic breathing so they put him on oxygen Friday and did another oxi to see if it made a difference. It did help reduce breathing issues so the Pulmanologist is going to keep him on the oxygen. He said since Blake's lungs are underdeveloped still it is going to have to be something he grows out of. Basically he thinks Blake will have to be on oxygen for the next 2 months, but could get off of it sooner. They have also stopped his BP medicine because his bp has dropped into normal range since being off the Theo. Now we are just down to 2 reflux meds, vitamins/iron and a stool softner. Poor man had to have a supository every night because the soy was backing him up and he would scream from not being able to go. Boy did he go once he got it. Blake got to meet all the many specialists possible that an infant can see. We will have to follow up with them so they can monitor his progress.


Dad is doing good. His surgery went great and he is back at home now. He still has to have a nurse come to the house every day and give him shots of thinner and Kumadin and draw his blood. We are going to fly to Ohio for Labor Day. The doctors gave us the all clear so my my dad will finally get to see Blake. He hasn't seen him since he was 3 weeks old.

8-15-08

Well little Mr. man has been having some troubles. He isn't holding down his feeds very well so we went back to the pediatrician. He even vomited up the bottle he ate while he was there all over the room we were in and on daddy. Nice. So she believed us when we said he was vomiting everything. She switched him to a non milk base formula called Nutramagen. We thought that would work. He seemed to do better on Saturday but by Sunday he could not hold down any of his feeds and all his meds came up with them. His doc called every day to check on him. By Monday morning he was very dehydrated. His pediatrician had us come in. He hadn't gained any weight and had some apnea while at home that morning. I am glad he was on his monitor because that sucker went off and I had to wake him up because he ws not breathing. So while we waited at the office to see her I overheard someone asking how long the wait would be. The nurse said she didn't know becuase there were four patients in front of them and they had to admit one. I thought to myself "man I wonder who is getting admitted?". HAHA boy was I surprised when she walked in and told me that I needed to take him directly over to the hospital where he was going to be admitted into the PICU (pediatric ICU). He had another short apnea spell while I was checking out. His pedi came over right after the office closed to check on him. She told me I was not allowed to stay the night because I looked like crap and I needed to go home and get some good sleep...which I had yet to get. He is always waking up needing to be burped through out the night becuase of his reflux. He has yet to have a good comfortable sleep. So once they got him settled in I went home that night and slept till 10 the next morning, fell back asleep till 2. I had no idea how tired I was.

8-13-08

Blake saw the Ophlamologist today. Due to my backgroudn and genetics...he has reallly bad eyes. I prayed and prayed he would never get my eyes, but he did. First his eyes moved back to a stage 2 which is not good, but that is not the part she is concerned with. Apparently he is very very far sighted. She did some tests that showed he is a +7 in both eyes. If it is not treated he will develop a lazy eye and it will cross making him loose vision in that eye. So to correct the problem he is going to have to be put in hard contacts. Yes I said contacts. He could get glasses but they will be to thick and will put too much pressure on his little nose closing off his tiny nostrils making it hard to breathe.

Oh my dad got put back in ICU. They found more clots in his lungs so they are going to do surgery tomorrow and put a filter in by his heart to make sure if any ever break free they won't get into his heart. They are treating him with thinners again.