Day 7 - May 24, 2013

Benjamin got up and went to school in Des Moines.  I asked if it was weird to be back there after a year of being gone.  He said it was only weird how completely normal it felt to drive up Grand Ave all the way to the school.  When he got there, they gave him breakfast, he checked out his cap and gown and went to meetings all morning.  They were about his computer, financial "what now's?", and other fun end-of-school stuff.

Then he went back to the hotel and picked up Terry for the first big event I was looking forward to:  the picnic.  DMU did many picnics over the time we were there.  You get free food and drinks, music, and you get to see others from the school.  It is pretty casual.  It wasn't always that exciting (except for the free food!) but it would be the first time we had seen anyone in a year.  So I was excited.  Benjamin was a peach and sent me lots of pictures of this trip so that I would not be so sad missing out on everything.

Then they went over to the storage unit to check out how all of our stuff fared.  After calling to let me know the great condition of his guns, his second thought was about the rest of his stuff.  *sigh*  I am glad I married a man with a sense of humor.  Haha!  The stuff all looked good.  Just like we left it.  So that is great!

The other big event was his banquet.  Now THIS I was excited for.  When you imagine a "doctor's wife", she always looks good, with nice clothes.  In reality, they are just like everyone else.  Individuals.  But I was excited for the chance to not only not have some nasty "child something" all over my shirt, but to dress up and go to a fancy banquet where the food cost way more than it was worth!  I was a bit concerned how I would pull this off as I had nothing to wear to it and would look like a hippo, but I would have figured SOMETHING out.  :)  But I guess I didn't need to.  Benjamin and Terry "tolerated" it and talked to a few friends.  Don't they look so handsome?!  Terry looks good, but I wish I had been his date instead.

 This is my plate.  They wouldn't reimburse us when Adam was born, and apparently they have laws about taking home doggie bags at things like this.  We don't get it.  So we paid way too much for food we weren't allowed to take out of the building.  Let's just say that Benjamin had a BIG meal that night.  :)  We don't waste food in our family!

I took this day to try and spend some time with the girls.  I went in to see Adam early, then came home to spend a good part of the day with the girls.  Then I went back to see him later that night after the girls were in bed.  

For our big festivities, I ate lunch with them and put Alaina down for a nap.  While I was gone, Cathy and the girls made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for the afternoon.  They were super yummy while we had a girls' afternoon in watching The Music Man.  I am embarrassed to say (especially with my minor being Theater and Speech Education) that I had never seen it!  Cathy made sure to rectify the situation.  :)  We watched the original movie, which I found to be very cute!  It is pretty long, so there was plenty of show for Alaina to watch when she woke up.  At the end, they were even inspired to get up and dance.

This year has been a hard one for all of us, including these sweet little girls.  They love to be social, and they have not been able to hold onto the friends that they make along the way because we move!  I am so glad that they are each other's best friend.  I hope that that won't stop as they get older.

And here is out littlest cutie-patootie.  And look at him wearing clothes!  They started leaving the isolet at one temperature instead of having it adjust to make sure his temperature was where it should be.  This is the first step to weaning him off of the isolet.  It is still slightly toasty in there, but it is similar to how we control our body temp with "room temperature" air around us.  It was so funny to see him in clothes.  I hadn't really thought about it until I saw him in them.  :)

I love skin to skin.  He is so snugly and seems to just relax into me.

Day 6 - May 23, 2013

Yesterday if Adam had not been born, I would have taken the girls to one of my sisters' houses to stay with them while I went on a trip.  Today is the day Benjamin still had to leave.  It was a sad day for me to see him leave and not be able to go with him.  But Adam is more important.

Today Benjamin took off with Terry and they drove down to Salt Lake City.  They parked the car, took a shuttle, and got the the air port.  They flew to Denver and had a layover that turned into 4 hours with the delays.  Then they flew to Omaha, Nebraska on the second leg of their flights.  From there they rented a car and drove to the hotel we reserved in West Des Moines and finally crashed for the night.  It was a long day of traveling for them for sure.

Meanwhile, Cathy watched the girls without complaining even though she didn't get to go on her trip either.

I came to see Adam.  I asked the charge nurse what it is as a parent I should be doing, and she asked the doctor for me who was doing a procedure at the time.  I got orders that let me hold him at every feeding and breastfeed him twice a day.  They call this first step non-nutritive breastfeeding.  I pump everything out before he gets started and then they still give him the milk he needs in the tube.  I'm sure he still gets a little milk, but they need to control his intake.  So practice will eventually become worth it for him!

They also began the first steps of weaning him out of his isolet.  They believe he does so well controlling his temperature that they think this is a great step for him.

Today was a HUGE day for the girls, too!  Aunt Danielle spoiled them rotten (not to mention seriously tired them out!)  The girls got to go to iJump!  Then Danielle bought them happy meals and brought them to see me.  They went to a class where they became more aware of all of the things that happen in the NICU.  The class is called, "So my brother is in the NICU, what about me?"  The girls had a lot of fun seeing all of the things that they use in the NICU.  I know that in some places it is different, but the girls are not allowed to even see him until he is discharged.  That is really hard for little ones to understand.  So besides the tools that they use, I made them wheel out all of the cribs and isolets that he is or will be using.  They took a cute little doll and used tape to put the IV on it.

THEN they got cake pops to celebrate the graduation/promotion of Dallin into high school!  Back to Danielle's house to play with cousins, deny naps, and play with friends across the street.  More trampoline time and Alaina got to ride in one of those cute cars they kids sit and "fred flinstone" around in.

It took forever for them to get to bed tonight because they were so completely tired.  I couldn't even get upset that it took us almost 2 hours to get ready for bed in between the crying and earth shattering moments. It was because they had such a GREAT day.  Thank you Aunt Danielle for loving on them when it is hard to do that right now.  I feel bad that there is so much juggling at this time of their lives.  It will be over soon...  It will be over soon...

All of the good pictures of today are on my phone still, so I will update this post once I get the pictures off.

Day 5 - May 22, 2013

Today is more of the same.  Growing and trying to get better.  He STILL is having problems with his IVs going bad.  He is tolerating his feedings well so they decided to stop his IV about a day and half before they were planning on it.  So no more starting new IVs.  The poor guy is covered in bruises from all of them.

He also gained 5 grams.

This was a special day because Benjamin got up early and went to his 6am care and held him skin to skin for the first time.  They snuggled for a few hours.  It was a good manly bonding time.  :)

He will make it!!!

 "Hello, Ladies."

Day 4 - May 21, 2013

Another day!  He is slowly getting better and we are thrilled.  He is a strong little boy.

Everyday they will increase both IV fluids and feedings until they reach a certain mark.  Then they are supposed to decrease the IV fluid while continuing to increase feedings until the IV is gone.  What a blessing that will be when the IV is gone!  

We have begun giving him a pacifier while he is being fed to begin him associating sucking with feeling full.  He took it beautifully.  This helped set us up for me to try breastfeeding again.... And succeeding for 8 minutes!  This is seriously a big deal because most don't begin trying until 34 weeks corrected age and he is barely 33!  :)

The biggest news of the day was his oxygen.  For those who know what this means:  Weaned to 1 L/NC at 21% in morn, off completely by 12:30pm.  That's right!  He no longer needs that fat tube on his face giving him air!  They have told us time and again that the three big things he needs to be able to do before he goes home is breathe, control his temperature, and be able to coordinate suck/swallow/breathe to be able to take all his food orally.  Hello first major hurdle! 

Adam continues to struggle with keeping IVs.  His little veins just don't last that long.  So in these pictures his IV is now in his arm.  To keep his arm from bending, they taped an "arm board" to him.  He has also had an IV in his foot, which he kicked out.  Both hands have been done too.  Not fun.

Here are some pictures of the day!  The first one is of Benjamin and the girls just before I left to go visit Adam.  Check out my technologically advanced family!  Benjamin is on his iPhone, and the girls each have an iPod to play with! 

Day 3 - May 20th, 2013

This was the first day that we had to drive to the hospital to see our son.  Yesterday was the hardest day because we had to go home without him.  The girls were really sweet to come home to.  Check out this awesome dance move that Benjamin caught Haley doing!

 Well today was a relief because I got to go back and see him.  I have heard that postpartum depression runs high in NICU moms because they beat up on themselves and while watching their baby struggle.  It was REALLY nice to go back today and see that I could still be his mom, but that is just where he needs to be right now.  I was able to change his diaper, take his temperature, and hold him a little bit today.  I spent the majority of the day with him.  I made me feel better about leaving him overnight.  It is never easy to leave him, but now I know I will always get to see him the next day and he is well taken care of while I am gone.

Benjamin's notes included: Off antibiotics!; New IV site x 3 :(  As you can see from the pictures, it is now in his scalp.  These are where some of the biggest veins (and easiest ones to get) are;  Up to 18 mL feeding every 3 hours;  Still on TPN and lipids (these are things that they put in his IV for strength and nutrition and all that.  They are made exactly specific to him and his labs are drawn every morning to see how they need to be adjusted for the next set.); Weight 2025g (about 4 pounds 7.5 ounces).

Losing water weight is typical of any baby, term or premature, so often when you bring a term baby home from the hospital they are smaller than their birth weight.  I am not sure if it is across the board, but premature babies can lose up to 10% of their birth weight (and still have the doctors feel comfortable!).  They usually should regain their birth weight in 10-14 days.

Other exciting news:  The lactation consultant, who I love, caught me in the halls and began talking to me.  She was pumped and decided to help me try and breastfeed him.  Usually they might latch on but it takes some time to learn.  Well, Adam is a rockstar, so no one will be surprised to hear that he nursed, and well I might add, for 17 minutes!  In the NICU, 15 minutes is considered a "full feed".  It was super exciting for everyone here.  :)

The main things you see in the pictures:  scalp IV, oxygen into his nose, monitors to check his heart rate, breathing rate and blood saturation, and a tube down his throat to put the milk straight into his tummy.  Sometimes he is a bit complicated to hold, but he sure is fun to hold once you get situated!  

Day 2 - May 19th, 2013

I was still in the hospital, and Benjamin stayed with me as well.  Together we took many trips down the hall and around the corner to visit baby Adam.  Cathy and Terry took care of the girls, who were just fine in their normal environment.  I was recovering nicely.  I had no tearing in this delivery, which I was shocked to find out after a lot of tearing with both of the girls.  I was weaning myself off of my pain medication too.  I asked the doctor if I had to stay a second night and not go home until Monday just because it was the "normal" thing to do.  I was doing well and honestly didn't want to pay for another day in the hospital just to be woken up all the time to have my vitals taken and have my blood drawn again.  Doctor Leavitt was more than happy to write the discharge for today.

Today Adam received a blessing from Benjamin and Terry.  It would have been a great thing to do the first day, but we really weren't allowed to touch him much.  

Benjamin's notes included:  Sats still at 100% on 3L and RA, Off renal "NIRS", Down to 2L NC(means they pumped less oxygen in him and he still did well), blood pressure mean up to 41, started TPN and tube feeds going up, weight 2045g.

Today he was stable enough that he could finally get that bath!  He had been wiped down but his hair was still a bit matted.  Generally he just needed a good scrub down!  And the best part was that they let ME do it!  So I got to give him a sponge bath and touch his cute little body and then snuggle him skin to skin for two hours.  It was like heaven being able to do more than just look at him through a plastic case.

Picture time!

Day 1 - May 18th, 2013

Adam was born at 8:28am.  They put him on my belly, rubbed him off with warm towels, and swept him out of the room.  The first two days were extra crazy because I was having to recover from giving birth.  So Benjamin was great and always kept notes of how he was doing.  He also would go visit him when I couldn't and text me pictures from in the hospital.  :)

When he first came out, his Fio2 requirement up to 40% and his breathing was somewhat labored.  They decided that he needed extra help to breathe.  They gave him a 5mL dose of surfactant.  In order to deliver the medicine, he had to be intubated, but it was promptly removed.  My un-medically trained understanding is that the avioli in your lungs stick together when they are as immature as his were.  This miracle medicine helps them to expand and not stick together, kind of like breaking the surface tension.  When you have two wet pieces of plastic together, they stick, and the surfactant helped keep this from happening inside his lungs.

After this treatment, his oxygen saturation went up to 100%!  Then his oxygen was turned down to 21% at 3 L/min on high flow NC (CPAP).  This is the tube going into his nose.  It pushed the oxygen into his lungs because he wasn't able to pull it in sufficiently on his own yet.

We learned that premature babies' blood pressure feels super low when you think about what your blood pressure might be.  Beyond how low it seems, they measure how "good" it is by taking the mean of the two numbers.  They want that mean to be at or higher than his gestational age.  His blood pressure was a little low with a mean of 26 but they were not too concerned since his renal infrared spectroscopy was good in the 80's and 90's.  By evening, his blood pressure mean was up to 38.  

Other notes he took included receiving D10 w/2% protein and trophamine, received 1 feeding of 2 mL breast milk per oral gastric tube (that's the little tube you see going into his mouth and taped to his chin), and Ampicillin and gentamicin for abx.  He also had a moderate caput to back of head.

As many moms know, all babies lose weight when they first are born.  I assumed it was because they burn more calories when they are first born.  I found out a large portion of what they lose is water weight.  Doctors like to see them lose no more than 10% of their body weight and regain their birth weight about 10-14 days after birth.  His weight was 2131g at birth then 2075g in evening.

VERY shortly after he was born, Danielle came to visit and take a few pictures.  Later on that day, Cathy brought the girls to visit me in the hospital.  In a crazy world, it was nice to snuggle them and see their beautiful faces.  Benjamin said someday I would be glad I got this picture, but I don't think I am happy with ME in the picture yet...  I guess no one looks good the day they deliver a baby, especially with the crying I did as I panicked and tried to think about how many things were going to change.

Now the fun part:  Here are a few pictures of day 1!