Well, friends, Samuel has rocked it this week. He is growing stronger each day and proving what a tough little dude he is. His feeding tube is now out and he's getting all his meals from breast and bottle. It's so nice to see his little angel face without a bunch of stuff taped onto it. HUGE accomplishment that puts him on the road to coming home. His nurse practitioner advised us today to celebrate our wedding anniversary early, as he could be home in a week. A WEEK!!! We are thrilled and terrified at the same time. We have also discovered The Village Pub will hook us up with a to go order. I can't think of any better way to celebrate our anniversary than hangin' at home (HOME!) with our little guy, celebrating all he's accomplished. It's been a tough, but good year.
Sam's suck/swallow/breathe skills have definitely gotten better, but he still has occasional desats and bradys that seem to be related to eating. The key is he needs to be able to recover on his own (even term babies brady) without any intervention, oxygen, etc. He's begun doing this, but needs to maintain for at least 5 days straight. Yesterday was day 1. The countdown begins.
Also, instead of eating every 3 hours, he's now being fed on demand. This means WAAAAHHHHH!!! = FOOD! He wakes up, screams a little and tries to eat his hand. We feed him and let him eat as much as he wants. The docs are monitoring closely to ensure he's still eating enough and gaining the proper amount of weight (currently 6lbs 13oz!!!). He's been guzzling down like a frat boy, so no issues there.
His little eyeballs are still looking good today after his weekly eye exam. The vessels are still immature, so he will continue to be examined weekly until they are mature, which should be just a couple of weeks, hopefully. The exams are so unpleasant, I'm hoping he can kick that to the curb very soon. It's so distressing to hear him scream from the discomfort. It makes my heart ache for him.
I was warned I would become huge a crybaby. Boy, you guys weren't lyin'. I cry at EVERYTHING. One of my biggest bawls came after this Father's Day commercial.
Damn you, Hallmark! I had to rewind the commercial so Steve could see it. The end, where the Dad comes in and says, "Com'ere!" and the little girl jumps into his arms just slays me. Through snorty, snotty tears, I said to Steve, "Sam is gonna love you that much!!! WAHHHHHHH!!! "
I bawled at a diaper commercial showing a micro preemie like Sam, 3 months early. Seeing that tiny little girl, just tugged at my heart.
I hear songs that make me think of Sam and just sob. :::sigh::: I'm a Mommy. I've already abandoned lip gloss since I kiss him a million times a day. Mascara should probably go too. I've ended up with raccoon eyes on more than one occasion.
We need to give big time thanks to my cousin Jay and his awesome wife, Tami. After 2 beautiful girls, they had enough baby gear to open a store. We are the lucky recipients of ALOT of that stuff. Thanks, you guys! You have been crazy generous and we appreciate it so, so much! We look forward to babysitting for, like, a thousand hours to re-pay you. Tell Jada we'll let her drive :)
I hope next week, I'm writing to let you know our sweet boy is home. Can you believe the finish line is so freakin' close??!! Wooo hooooo!
He came. He saw. He crapped. BOY, did he. I noticed Jr. hadn't pooped in 24 hours, though he was REALLY trying. It's unusual for him to not poop at least twice. I mentioned to the nurse maybe he was constipated and needed a little somethin' somethin'. She agreed and said she'd give him a suppository, the glycerine bullet. Sam got a spa treatment of a bath, after which we dressed and swaddled him up before she had a chance to give it to him. So, she gave it to him later. When we returned in the evening, the night nurse said he'd had a blow out, which I dubbed Sam's Sunday Craptacular!! We were happy he pooped and happy we weren't there to clean it up! Not so fast. We approached Sam's crib and noticed the funk in the air immediately. Craptacular 2.0 was in effect. Steve got the wipes ready. I got the diaper and Aquaphor. I pulled down the diaper. Oh. My. GOD. It was FULL of what looked like MUD. Seriously. It looked like he sat in a bucket of MUD!! I looked at Steve. He looked at me. We looked at Jr.'s butt. We were in disbelief. I told Steve I was gonna need more wipes. It took a good long while to get the crap spackle off his butt. Damn. That's all I can say.
Speaking of huge poops, Sam is up to 6lbs 4oz!! I was sure he'd lost like a pound after that poop, but he's going strong. He still feels tiny compared to other babies, but I guess he's kinda normal size now. Smaller side of normal. The only time I think he's huge is when I remember he's still suppose to be in me. Last week, I found myself examining my c-section scar. "My son came from here, from me.", I thought. Still very surreal. I mean, he's here. I've got the baby to prove that scar is not for naught. Sometimes I still can't believe it though.
More about that fabulous bubble bath! It was like a spa treatment, thanks to his wonderful nurse, Patty. He was a little fussy before he went into the tub. Being nekkid isn't his fave right now. Once he got in the water, oh man! He just loooooved it! He loved it so much, his little toes curled. Here's a little video of him chillaxin'.
Now, on to the Boob Report. Jr. has been working very hard to become a breast feeding expert. He's doing it so well, his lips are getting chapped. Seriously! He still has his fits of desperation, where he gets in his own way. He'll have his little arms in the way and end up with his hand in his mouth. Then he has a fit and tries to grab onto my nipple with both hands. It's hilarious! Well, it wasn't so hilarious the other day when he scratched my nipple with his little shiv of a fingernail. OWWWW! Mommy will need to learn to cut fingernails asap. He usually goes at it for 15-20 minutes and gets out about half of his feed. I give the rest by bottle if he's awake enough. He gets tuckered out working for his meals. At that point, I'll pull him off and I'm always amazed by how much of my boob is actually in that tiny little mouth. Boob for DAYS. Reminds me of one of those clowns with the never ending stream of handkerchiefs coming out of their pockets. Hopefully, as the next few weeks go by, he will get stronger and be able to breastfeed for longer periods of time.
Sam's eye exam last Thursday brought great news. Actually, let me back up. The week before last, Jr. was noted to still have stage 1 in both eyes, an improvement over the previous diagnosis of stage 1 in both eyes and a tiny bit of stage 2 in his left eye. His last exam showed he's no longer even considered stage 1. Whatever damage he had is reversing itself. At this point his eyes are looking great! He'll still need to have weekly checks since this could change at any time, but so awesome to take a step in the right direction!
Okay, ready for some REALLY awesome news? Yes, it's even better than the Craptacular! Today, Jr. had an oxygen challenge test. His oxygen was turned down to 21%, which is regular room air. He was still getting a little flow though. He did so well, his cannula was removed. He continued to do well after another 30 minutes. For this reason, the cannula will stay off unless he backslides a bit. HUGE news!!! I was so excited, I hugged his nurse, told 5 people, then ran out into the hall and jumped in the air pumping my fist! YAY SAM!!!!!!! I am so, so proud of our boy! I'm just about to bust with happiness! As Sam nears 37 weeks, I feel like I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Now, time for some serious thank yous. Dayna and Eija, thank you for throwing such a beautiful shower to celebrate Sam. What a wonderful day! I so enjoy being in the loving fold of girls I'm proud to call friends. Dayna, thank you for welcoming us all into your home, AGAIN. Some of the most important events of my life have been celebrated in your backyard. I cherish those times and you. Also, big thanks to Dave, our wedding officiant and homey, for springing for the par-tay for the displaced husbands and children! You are too, too generous!
In addition to becoming parents, Steve and I are now god parents to a wonderful young man named Joseph. Ash, we were so floored and so honored you asked. We look forward to being a huge part of Jojo's life and hope he will always know he can count on us. We are family and we love you both so much.
This is gonna be a long one. Lots of big stuff happening and no time to write all week. You ready?? Here it goes!
Our little guy continues to delight and entertain us. We've recently referred to him as Sam, The Destroyer. This is due to his ability power poop, destroying all in his path. Last week, It was the poop heard 'round the world! The nurse pulled down Sam's diaper and ka-POW! Jet-propelled nuggets splattered the inside of his isolette. Way to go, champ! The little dude has done this a couple of times. He farts up a storm, which Steve thinks is hella amusing. Okay, it IS kinda funny :-P How could something that loud come out of such a tiny little being?? He cut one so loud yesterday, I feared people would think I did it! Somehow, I think there will be many farting contests going on in our household in the future. Aren't boys awesome?!
Close monitoring of the eyeballs continues. Sam had his 2nd eye exam last Friday. The results were "incipient stage 1 ROP, zone 2". As scary as that sounds, it's actually a pretty good report. Sam has the tiniest of beginnings of ROP at the very outer edge of zone 2. This diagram explains a bit more: http://www.tsbvi.edu/seehear/winter98/rop.htm. The eye doc said most stage 1 and stage 2s resolve on their own. Yesterday's exam shows the same with the addition of some minor stage 2, outer edge of zone 2. All in all, still a pretty good report.
Sam has been on the nasal cannula for over 2 1/2 weeks now and is doing great. He's still having his desat and brady episodes (less than before), but over all, he's on the right path. I walked in on Monday (or was it Tuesday?) to find him off the cannula breathing room air! The nurse just wanted to do a little test to see how he'd do. He proved to be a bad ass. He's back on the cannula, but hopefully in the near future, he will be able to try out room air again.
After he managed to rip out the feeding tube from his mouth AGAIN, the nurse decided to put it through his nose. He definitely seems more comfortable with this. However, it causes him to make weird sounds. He's somewhere between a snorting pig and a honking goose and it's a total hoot. He sounds like he should be in France rooting around in the forest for truffles. Might be kinda cool and profitable to teach him to do that! We love us some truffles!
Probably the most fun thing that's happened in the last week has been bath time! We've done sponge baths and full on baths. Jr. was so cute stripped down in the little basin. At first, he seemed alarmed when submerged in the water. He cried a bit then was like, "Ohhhhhhh! I remember how it feels to be in warm water! Cool!" He totally loved it. I washed his hair and got all the little crevices. Crevices are good. Means he's gaining weight and getting those little baby rolls. Speaking of weight, our little chubbster is 4lbs 14oz as of this morning. I remember being so excited when he busted 3 lbs, then 4. Now, 5 is just around the corner!
Little dude's star continues to rise. We were asked to participate in yet another video. This one is an orientation video for the NICU. It will go on the hospital's website and YouTube channel. I will definitely post that when it comes out.
Last week, Sam started a little recreational breast feeding. It's exactly how it sounds. He was just messin' around on there. While I held him, the lactation consultant squeezed a few drops into his mouth (Yes, someone else was operating my boob). He smacked his lips and decided it was pretty tasty, so we put him on the boob. Amazingly, he started to get the hang of it all. He doesn't quite have the suck/swallow/breathe thing down, so he does what he needs to, which is suck for a bit, pause to swallow and catch his breath, recover and start again. Pretty good for a newbie to the booby. He's doing even better this week. The lactation consulted called him very motivated. LOL! At times, I'll think he's done, so I start to move the boob out of his mouth and he attacks me like the honey badger attacks a snake (learn about the honey badger here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg ) . He's almost in a panic, like he fears it'll be his last boob (early development of a feeling I'm sure most males have). So, he gets back on and goes to town. You should see him kill a pacifier. This kid is going to be a breastfeeding expert in no time.
The biggest news by far this week is Sam's graduation to the step down nursery! It's called the IICN or intermediate intensive care nursery. They don't deal with CPAPS and ventilators down there. I was excited, but scared as the nurses prepared for Sam's departure from the NICU. They got his isolette hooked up to portable monitors and an oxygen tank, loaded up his chart and other pertinent records and we were off. There was something in seeing his isolette rolled out of the NICU. I felt proud and happy to be taking such a step forward with him. I was also nervous to leave the the familiar confines of the NICU and the wonderful nurses that literally kept him alive. They became our family and I was sad to leave them.
We made our way downstairs. When we arrived, I was kinda creeped out by the eery quiet down there. Not nearly at chaotic as the NICU. The lights were low. There weren't as many dinging machines constantly going off. I later discovered there's a different kind of noise in there. It's due to having older babies whose lungs are stronger, who let you know when they are HUNGRY, or wet, etc. One baby will start crying, then all at once, they all chime in for a huge, collective WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! Kinda like a bunch of dogs getting going when they hear a fire truck. It's pretty damn funny!
Things are definitely more laid back in the IICN. Unlike the NICU, we don't have to ask permission for alot. We can go in, take his temp, change his diaper, his clothes. We even take him out of the isolette on our own and just get our cuddle on. I'll get settled in to breast feed on my own. They like for the parents to take charge and just care for their child. We're still learning alot and it's kinda neat that we get to practice on a real baby knowing we have expert help at the ready. Hopefully, by the time we take him home, we'll have alot of stuff down and won't be quite so terrified.
Went back for the early afternoon feeding and got to help move Sam into an open air crib! PRISON BREAK!!! It's soooo cool to be able to look in on him without the thick plastic separating us. Yet another milestone reached! I also fed him by bottle for the first time. He did a great job, taking nearly half the feeding by bottle. He managed to not choke himself once! Impressive!
Lately, it's been tough coming to terms with how this all went down. I found myself looking at some pictures of Sam the first week he was with us. Seeing him so tiny and fragile literally causes me physical pain. I find myself feeling so robbed. I missed out on the whole birth experience. I wasn't there for Sam. It should've been the most amazing moment of my life, filled with joy. I remember my discharge summary noted "viable male infant" delivered. Viable. Why did that send chills down my spine when I read it? How close were we to something far worse? My wise friend, Cherie, said the birth is like a wedding. Yes, it's a spectacular, wonderful event, but what really counts are the days and years to follow. Makes total sense and I know this, but I'm still having a hard time. And really, would it have been better if I'd been conscious? I was sick with fear on the way to deliver him and when they began to put me under. He would've been whisked away. I wouldn't have gotten to hold him. I probably would've been a wreck just wondering if they could save him.
Last week, I pulled into the parking lot so exhausted. I sat in my car and cried realizing I was about to walk through those hospital doors for about the 150th time since Sam's birth. I will try to focus on all of Sam's achievements. No more ventilator. No CPAP. No isolette. No brain bleeds. No NEC. He smiles now. It melts my heart. He makes me laugh. Sometimes, I want to hold him so tightly, I fear popping his little head right off. He's gaining weight right on target. He poops like a champ. He's my boy and he's going to be fine. We are going to have a wonderful life together.
A special thanks to my sweet Alice, who walked this path before me. You've been my touchstone and sounding board through all this. Even though being there for me may cause you to re-live your tough times with your little boy, you have never wavered in your support. I love you so much.
Tammara, your pulled pork rocked! I had to skip the cole slaw. Jr. already has enough gas to heat a small village :-P
And to my Brunch Bunch, thank you so so much for the lovely baby shower last week. I so enjoyed celebrating Sam with you. Michele, you and your stellar organizational skills are much appreciated!
We're in the home stretch now. 9 weeks down. Hopefully only 4-6 more until our baby love is home with us.
