He Rolled Over!

Awww! My baby's growing up too fast! :(

Zach rolled over from front to back today! He'd KIND of done it before, but it was more like he was propped up and FELL over rather than ROLLED over. This time, though, he was flat on his back and rolled right on over :D And then he did it again. And again lol

And so it begins :P

Jess

A couple of new pictures

Here's a few of Zach's 3 Month pictures :) I do have a few more but I haven't processed them yet :) These are my favorites though







And in this one, he looks like me when I was little :)

Oh gosh, it's been a while

Man on man, I've been slacking on the updates.

Zach is doing GREAT! He just turned three months on the 5th :) I can't believe he's so old already *sigh*

He's a little over 13lbs at the moment, but I'm not sure how long he is.
Here's some pictures of Zach at around 9 weeks old:









Here's him and his brother as well


I've got more recent pictures, but I'm giving them to my mom for her birthday on the 12th, so you'll have to wait until after then to see them haha

We went to the neurologist yesterday for an EEG and a follow up visit. It went wonderfully! Zach's EEG came back 100% normal! They didn't see ANY of the irregularities that they'd seen in previous EEG's, no sign of epilepsy, and he passed the photosensitivity test with flying colors! They're having us wean him off of his medication by having us only give it to him in the morning (instead of in the morning and at night), and in two weeks, we can stop it entirely! :D

We've decided not to vaccinate, for now at least. We've read, and discussed at length, Dr. Sears' The Vaccine Book, as well as discussed it with both his pediatrician and his neurologist, and we feel that with Zach having had these episodes so soon after receiving his first vaccine, and with me breastfeeding and him not being in daycare, he's reasonably protected from many of these diseases. Once he gets older, we'll consider which vaccines he'll benefit from receiving, especially when it comes time to go to school.

Anyway, here's Z getting his EEG (he did NOT like those wires). I call this his "Spaghetti Monster" impression haha :) Please excuse the low quality cell phone pictures


and here's him cheesing at me while waiting for the neurologist:


Thanks for reading, and I promise to try to update more often! :)

Just a couple pictures from tonight

They didn't turn out quite how I wanted, but my Mommy Goggles make me want to show them off anyway lol!

He's growing up so fast!

Zach slept through the night last night (May 21st).... On one hand, that was a nice change. On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm ready for my baby to be so grown up yet!

But, he's doing great health wise :) Still seizure free, still hates his medicine, still constantly hungry lol

So since there's nothing really to add on that front, I'll update with some pictures :)

These were from April, right after getting out of the hospital, and most were used in his birth announcements :)









(this one's a little hard to see because it's so small, but it's our wedding bands hanging on his big toe)






Here's my chunky monkey from a few days ago


Just a reminder of how "little" he was, this was around 2 1/2 weeks (shortly after we came home from the hospital)



This is my favorite picture from Mother's Day.. It's all three of my guys :D



Here's me and him today (pay no mind to the lack of makeup mmkay?)



Ok so that'll have to tide you over for now. We're going to get his pictures done at Melton (!) tomorrow, so I may skip doing my own pictures for his 2 months. We'll see ;)

A whole month old!

Zach is a month old today! Can you believe it? *sigh* I can't believe time has gone by so quickly. Part of me feels kind of cheated because we pretty much missed out on his first week, and then the second week we really were just trying to catch our breath a bit. But then the other part of me feels guilty for thinking that because there are so many parents in similar situations who never got to bring their little ones home after all that :( We're so incredibly blessed in so many ways :)

Here's a couple pictures to tide you over.. I have more of course but you'll have to wait for those ;)

Sleeping


Making faces


Pushing up (and James was petting him lol)


That's it for now! :-*

All is well!

Everything went great!! He was supposed to have an EEG and up his medication today, but they were so happy with his progress that they rescheduled it for July and decided to leave his medication alone They said when we come back in July, if the EEG goes well, then we'll start weaning him off of the medication at that time as well

Bye bye umilical cord :)

The rest of Zach's umbilical cord FINALLY fell off tonight :) The majority had fallen off when he was 12 days old, but since they'd had an umbilical line in it for so long, it took a while longer for the rest to fall off. It looks so gross lol I'm glad it fell off though.

We go back to the neurologist on Monday. I'll update y'all as to what they had to say when we get back :)

I know it's not really possible

but I swear that Zach LAUGHED today! He was sleeping, and he freaking smiled and laughed! It was crazy! I know that babies supposedly can't smile or laugh until much later, but I kid you not, this kid does! I hope I can catch it on video sometime to show y'all because if I hadn't seen and heard it myself I'd never believe it either!

Zach's Doctor's Appointment

We went to see Dr. O today (his new pediatrician) today for a hospital follow up combined with a 2-week visit, since he's 12 days old today. It went well. It was just a basic "let's establish care" visit for the most part.. Dr. O wants us to come back in 6 weeks for his 2 month checkup unless of course something comes up which of course we're hoping like heck that it doesn't.

We still have the follow up visit with Dr. W (the neurologist) on the 28th :)

But get this.

He was 8lb 8oz and 19.5 inches long at birth (that was on the 5th for those keeping score)

Today, at just 12 days old, Boobie Monster is 9lbs 11oz and 21 inches long I even made them remeasure lol

I freaking TOLD Mike he was going through a growth spurt! :P

One of my friends on James' birth board said that when her son had seizures when he was little, he had a heck of a growth spurt at that time as well, and his docs had said that there was a possibility that they were somehow related to the growth spurt. Crazy, huh? I'm definitely going to mention that to Dr. W and see what he says.

I've got some more pictures, but I'm waiting until I get his birth announcements done before I show anyone since family checks this blog as well :P In the meantime, these will have to tide you over





And my favorite,

We're home!!

Sorry it took so long to update :D We've been enjoying being home and hanging out with James some :)

Then there was a mixup at the stupid pharmacy and they didn't have Sprout's phenobarb ready and Mike ended up having to go back and forth between two pharmacies and almost didn't get his medication. Ug. We finally got it though, and were able to give him his medicine on time :) He's sleeping now, and James is running around like a madman.. God I've missed him :D

Anyway, I'll try to update on how we're doing as time goes on :D I just wanted to say thank you so much for everyone's thoughts and prayers.. They've obviously worked! :D Thank you!

*kisses*

And we're FREEEEE!

Just got the discharge papers and we're on our way out the door! We've still got to stop by Ron's House, get some lunch, and some gas before we head on out, but I'll update again when we're home! :D

Almost done here

They've finished up the discharge summary and are just waiting for them to process it. We've got an appointment with Dr. O at 10:15 Thursday to establish care at the kid's clinic back home... Dr. Wilson wants to see us back in two weeks at which time he'll get a repeat EEG, and they've faxed in the prescription of the phenobarb so that it'll be ready by the time we get home. It's 2.5ml twice a day, same as he's been getting here.

That's all the news we have so far! I'll post right before we leave and then again when we get home (after I've snuggled with my Doodle some! I've missed my other little fella something fierce! :D)

We're Comin Home!!

YEA! I just got word that we've been cleared to come home today!! They've still got to do rounds at 9, at which time he'll get his last hospital does of phenobarb, and then of course there's all the paperwork and follow up scheduling and calling in the prescriptions and such, but we're hoping to be out of here by around 2 or 3 this afternoon (ok ok we're hoping to be out by 11, but I'm a realist :P)

Mike's busy at Ron"s House packing everything up, and I've already got almost everything here packed up (as much as I can without having a car to pack lol)

And for something completely unrelated to anything, have you ever noticed how all the hospitals have the same blankets? This hospital has the blankets with the feet like they had back home when James was born, and I'm watching one of those baby shows on Discovery Health and they have the same striped blankets that they had in our hospital at home when Sprout was born. Funny how that works.

Anyway, I'm gonna go feed Boobie Monster before they do their rounds so hopefully he'll be able to keep his medicine down this time. The neon green spitup is getting old lol

I'll update when I hear something :)

10pm update

So, my little Boobie Monster nursed for about an hour and a half before I got worn out and gave him his paci long enough for me to catch a quick shower. Sure enough, I get back out and little Muncher Butt decides it's time to eat again, so back on the boobie he went. I finally got him to sleep, and the nurse came in. He was so far asleep that he didn't even wake up when she took his blood pressure! lol So then she went to get his medicine and it took her a good 5 minutes to get him to take it, and then he was so full he prompty threw some of it up. :-/ Luckily though he seems to have gotten most of it down... I went ahead and cleaned him up, changed his bum, and nursed him back to sleep, and he's over there snoozing so good that he's drooling lol

Dr. S just came in and spoke to me. He's the other pediatric neurologist here, and he told me that he and Dr. W were just completely flabbergasted. He said they both agreed that Zach's case is probably the most perplexing case that they've ever seen, and that they'd seen thousands of cases of newborn seizures. He said that he originally thought it might be the Fifth Day Seizures, but that normally those have a specific metabolic profile that Zach simply doesn't have. He said that the familial seizures (BFNC) is the only explanation left, but admitted that it was a bit of a cop-out, and that they really have no clue as to why he had the problems that he did. Zach has had, in Dr. S's words, "more tests in the past few days than most people will have in a lifetime", but that they've all come back clean with the exception of the abnormal EEG (which was of course to be expected), and that the repeat EEG was a very dramatic improvement, and so he pretty much has no idea what's wrong.

He and Dr. W want to follow up soon, and do another EEG at that time, and they'll be in direct communication with our pediatrician back home to make sure that Zach is still doing well.

He also said that unless something happens tonight, he sees no reason why we can't leave tomorrow :D

And in completely unrelated news, they have me right near the helipad, and I seriously thought that a helicopter was about to come in the window just a minute ago lol Let's hope they don't have any strong wind hmm?

Well, that's all the update I have. I'm going to try to catch some z's so that I won't be a zombie in a few hours when Boobie Monster over here wakes back up :D

We've moved!

We're moved into the Pediatric wing now! It's right around the corner from our old room on the same floor :) The upside is that we have a private bathroom and shower.. the downside is that there's no big person bed, only a little loveseat. Mike is going to spend the night at Ron's House while I stay here. Boo on him for being able to get a full night's sleep! :P

But Zach is sleeping comfortably in his new crib :) It's nice not to have him in that warmer unit!

They didn't hook him up to any monitors, so I can only assume that they're just going to let us hang out until morning, make sure he's still feeding well and not having any episdoes, and then letting us schedule a followup visit with Dr. W and the go home! Yea!!

Here's a couple of pictures to tide you over
This is Zach sleeping happily on Daddy's shoulder earlier this morning


This is him happily sleeping in the new pediatric unit


And in case you're wondering why I only have pictures of him sleeping, it's because he's a little piggy butt and if his eyes are open, then his mouth is also full :P

Well, that's all for now! I'll update when I know more :)

One step closer...

Well, we're still waiting on a regular room in the pediatric wing... We were joking with the nurse that we can tell he's much better because nobody's in a hurry any more :D

But they took all of his monitors off :D IDK if they'll be putting new ones on in the new room or not, but it was SO NICE to have nothing on him but the heparin lock!

But, they're here to move him so I have to jet :D I'll update when we get settled,

Morning!

He's doing so well that they canceled the EEG! They want to move us to the regular pediatric unit for observation to make sure his O2 stats are good and that he's tolerating his medication well and then Dr. K seems to think we can go ahead and set up our consult with Dr.W and then go home! :D Yea!! So keep your prayers and good thoughts coming and cross your fingers that his O2 stays good and that he tolerates his medicine well!

Overwhelmed by everyone's kindness

I'm seriously just overwhelmed by how much people have done for us since this happened. It's like Mike said to me yesterday -- if you'd asked me a week ago if I had more friends or acquaintances, I'd have said acquaintances, but now I see just how wrong I was in that assessment. Whether it be prayers, good thoughts, uplifting text messages, phone calls, offers of financial assistance, or physically doing tasks for us or bringing us gifts, I can't begin to say just how touched and thankful we are for everything that everyone has done for us :D

First with all the phone calls, emails, text messages, and message board posts asking about how Zach is doing, about how I'm doing, and about how James and Mike are holding up... The concern and love expressed by all those things are truly what have helped us to get through this scary time :)

Then with the Anna and the March '06 board getting together and getting us those things to help us take our minds off the day to day worries and focus on getting Zach healthy again, even though I'm not even a member of their board.

And I have to mention my neighbors back home..

They're an older couple that we'll call Mr. and Mrs. B.... Mr. B and Mike have talked and so they know we're between jobs...

Monday, the day we got home from having Zach, Mr. B brought us a bunch of stuff -- he brought James an outfit and a stuffed elephant, and brought Sprout several outfits and a couple blankets. Then he stopped by later that night with a pack of diapers for Sprout and a pack of pull-ups for James

Well, my mom caught him outside and told him about Zach being in the hospital, and how we're hoping to be home by Tuesday... He and his wife got together and brought more clothes and toys for both James and Zach, and then brought several bags of groceries over as well.. It seriously makes me cry to think about it :'(

And of course, I have to mention my parents and my in-laws! My mom and mother-in-law have both taken off of work so that they could alternate taking care of James while we're up here... My parents are helping us out financially even though they're not in the best situation themselves, and even offered to mortgage their house to help us with medical bills back before we knew that we were eligible for Medicaid... It's so amazing all the things that they have done for us during this time.

And all the comments left on this blog! It means so much to us to know that y'all are thinking of us and following Zach's story! I know that all the prayers and positive thoughts have not fallen on deaf ears, and that's why Zach has recovered so dramatically in such a short amount of time :) How could he not with so many people from all over the world pulling for him?!

So to everyone who has been thinking of us, I just wanted to say Thank You! You have no idea what it means to us :)

3am mini-update

Well, I don't think they ever checked his blood levels, but he hasn't had any suspicious activity, so maybe, just maybe, he doesn't really need all that phenobarb after all.... Obviously we're still going to keep him on it, but that does help ease my mind about what would happen if he spit it all up at home :)

But she just weighed him, and he's up to 9lbs 3.3 ounces! Not too shabby seeing has how he was 8lbs 8 ounces at birth, and he went almost two full days with no food! My little fatty fat really likes his Mama Milk huh? :D

But he's back asleep so I should probably try to catch some z's as well. I'll update in the morning as soon as I know something! :)

Ewww spitup lol

Poor little guy. He nursed so well and then they gave him his phenobarb... This was the first time that they'd given it to him without his feeding tube, and about 10 minutes later he spit up all his medicine :( So that was an adventure cleaning all that up. I'm not sure what they're going to do about his medicine. I'm thinking they'll give it a while to digest then will check his blood levels and re-dose him. Poor fella :( I'm worried that this might happen when we're home again, because there, we can't exactly check his blood levels and re-dose him later.

Bye Bye NG Tube!

No more feeding tube for my little guy! :D As of right now, the only thing he's hooked up to are the heart, breathing, and oxygen monitors!! It just keeps getting better and better, because originally they didn't want to take it out until morning :)

So he's got an EEG tomorrow morning, and then we go from there.. (Dare I hope we might go home tomorrow?! I'm trying not to get too excited!)

Pictures!

Okay here's the pictures I promised you from yesterday :D

This is Dr. F (the pediatric ophthalmologist) checking out his eyes. Notice the shorts lol He wasn't the typical "doctor type" I tell ya :D



Here's Mike holding him for the first time :D He tries to be all big and bad, but he missed his little guy :)









And this is Zach passed out from all the nummy Mama's Milk he's been getting today, since nursing is going absolutely perfectly :D


He's been nursing REALLY well today, and I was joking with Belinda that he must be making up for lost time lol

And now for something completely different.

Last night while one of the nurses was trying to get a urine sample, Zach peed all over her, the floor, the chair, and himself lol But, being the quick thinker that she is, Rosie (the nurse) was smart enough to kind of catch some in mid stream :P It was hysterical :P

Also yesterday, Mike had a new can of soda sitting on the counter, unopened. He grabbed the can and went to turn in his chair to place it on his dinner tray, and caught the can on the corner of the computer station and it punctured the can and soda spewed out all over everything! It was so funny because we both just sat there for a second and looked at it before we were able to react and cover the can! So Mike had to run out and get the nurses to bring him some towels to clean up the mess! :P Poor Mike!

Well, that's about it for now. Mike should be back soon (he ran to Ron's House to get my pajamas), so I'm going to try to catch a quick nap. I'll update again as I know more :)

YEA!

His urinalysis came back normal! So it's NOT a metabolic issue and I can keep nursing him!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D

The doc wants me to nurse him every three hours or on demand (whichever is soonest), and they're going to monitor his output and if he does well, then they'll take out the feeding tube tomorrow...

He also said that he thinks we'll be going home by Tuesday!! :D :D :D :D

So I'm going to try to catch a catnap because it's going to be a long day of nursing :D

I'll update if we get any news, and I'll try to get those pictures of Mike holding Sprout up sometime today :)

Jess

Zach's hospital pics are up

Here's the link if anyone is interested in seeing Chubby Butt in his 24 hour hospital pic

http://tinyurl.com/5aum4p

Night time update

Last update for the night. We're going to try to get some decent sleep tonight since he's doing really well so far :)

I was able to nurse him successfully this time :D :D :D He was a bit more awake this time, and we just kept the blow-by oxygen handy for the couple times when his O2 dropped a bit. The respiratory therapist said that even healthy babies have moments, especially while eating, where their oxygen will drop, and it's just that we don't have O2 monitors on them to know it.

But he nursed really well for about 5 minutes, which is HUGE considering that earlier today he just barely latched on for a few seconds before falling asleep :D So they did go ahead and give him 100cc's in the feeding tube to make sure he got enough, but I was so proud of my little man :D

So now the big thing is waiting on the results of the urinalysis tomorrow. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, and cross your fingers that it comes back negative so they don't have to start him on that yucky formula and he can keep getting Mama Milk :)

Well, I'm gonna go shower and try to get some sleep :) I've got some sweet pictures of Mike getting to hold Sprout for the first time since all this started, and hopefully I'll get a chance to process and post them tomorrow :D

G'night!

Mini-update

Hi hi!

The ammonia levels in the repeat lab were normal :) So it was just a screwup in the first one (which is what Dr. K2 said he thought it was anyway) :) We still have to wait until tomorrow for the urine test to see if he's spilling milk sugar or not, but at least his ammonia is good.

I got to nurse him earlier for a few minutes. Poor buddy! It's just so much work getting Mama's milk straight from the tap :D His little throat is still all swollen from crying and from the intubation and from the NG tube that it's a little hard for him to swallow at the moment, and his O2 level kept dropping because he would hold his breath. Considering though that he hasn't nursed in several days and all that he's been through, I think he did just beautifully :D

The pediatric opthomologist just left. He was checking Sprout's eyes to make sure that their anatomy was normal, because apparently there are some eye conditions that can cause seizures in little ones, but he said that his eyes are fine *whew*

They did give him sugar water and a soothie which is strange to me since James never took either of those, but they said the sugar water helps them deal better with pain and that the eye doc might have to put in some eye drops that sting (luckily it turns out that he didn't need to after all), and we didn't want him to hurt :)

They put some pajamas on him too :) It's so cute! His little tootsies were cold so they put some socks on him and then double bagged him as I call it in some pajamas :) He's looking more and more normal every day :D

He's over there napping right now (which is what I was doing earlier and why it took so long to update haha), and the dinner trays just got here, so I'm going to go enjoy some gourmet hospital food and update later on tonight :)

Mornin'!

Mornin' y'all!

We came in this morning to see the most wonderful sight: Zach had his eyes open and was wiggling around! They took out his oxygen, unhooked his IV (though the heparin lock is still there) and have increased his feeds all the way up to 25cc/hr :D

Dr. K2 wants to switch him over from continuous feeds to bolus feeds, which just means that instead of having a continuous drip into his belly, they'll do one big feed then not feed for a couple hours, then do another big feed, just as he would get if he were nursing. If he tolerates the first one (or maybe two, not quite sure yet) well, then he wants me to actually nurse him every other feeding!

And now for the possibly slightly upsetting news. Now, they don't know anything yet, so Dr. K2 told us not to get all excited about it (yeah right lol). His blood work this morning came back with his ammonia level being high. He said that his ammonia level could be high due to a procedural error (he said the test itself can be kind of tricky), so he came in and repeated the lab himself, and we're waiting on it to come back. On top of that, his urine from last night had what's called "reducing agents" in it. Basically, he's spilling sugar into his urine, but rather than it being glucose like adults have, it's milk sugar. That means that there is a possibility that he's having trouble digesting the milk :( Now, he did say that he's gotten a lot of false positives on that test lately, so he's repeating it tomorrow. IF it comes back positive tomorrow, he wants to switch Zach to a soy based formula until he can get back a metabolic panel (?) on him, which "could take a while". If that happens, he still wants me to pump every 3 hours like I've been doing to maintain my supply just in case it's not a metabolic disorder, so that I can switch him back to milk at that time. Now, like I said, that's not certain, and it's only if the test comes back positive tomorrow, so there's really no way to know as yet.

I just want to say that would suck. Those who know me know just how much that would suck. That's all I'm going to say about that.

But, he's over here meowing at me so I'm going to go hang out with my fella :)

I'll update later :)

Whoohoo!

I got to hold my Booger Butt!! :D

We had to wait for his stats to stabilize for a good while, as well as for his antibiotics to finish running, but I finally got to hold him for a good 30 minutes :D It was wonderful :) I just kissed on him and loved on him the whole time, and I swear he was smiling :) Folks may say that babies that young can't really smile, but I don't believe it :D

His little eyelids are so swollen from all the IV fluids that I honestly thought that he couldn't open his eyes, but after we'd put him back in the bed, he woke up right before we left and he looked right at me and I got really close so he could see me and I just talked to him and petted him, and his O2 saturation went up to 100%, his heartrate went up, and his breathing did too :) He recognized me I think.... I was on one side of the bed and Mike was on the other, and I told him that I'd be right back (I had to go put some milk in the fridge before it sat out for too long), and as soon as I turned my back, he made this pitiful little mewling sound (he lost his voice from crying so much combined with the intubation so that's all he can do is mewl) and so I came right back over and let him know I was still there and he quieted right back down *happy sigh*

Of course, a few minutes later, the nurse came in and gave him his phenobarbital for the night, which put him right back to sleep, but it felt SO GOOD knowing that he recognized me and that I was the last person he saw before he drifted off to sleep :D

Here's a sweet picture of him napping earlier today


Here's Belinda getting him ready to hand to me


Here's me holding my Booger Butt


And here's him smiling about it :D


I'll update in the morning as I get more news :)

Thank you to March '06

When Mike and I got back to the Ronald McDonald House tonight, the lady at the front desk stopped us and said that she had a bag for us.

Turns out Anna (wildernessgirl on PW) and the March '06 board had gotten us a really awesome goodie bag :)

They not only paid for a night at the RMD House, but they also got us gift cards to two different local restaurants, and a gift card to BP for gasoline for when we get to take Sprout home :D

I can't begin to tell you how overwhelmed we've been with everyone's kindness and generosity towards us since poor Sprout got sick. We are truly blessed to have so many people who care about us and who are praying for us and thinking about us.

Thank you so much to everyone, and again, thank you to Anna and the March '06 board for all of your kindness towards us!

:D

Hurry up and wait

Well, they finally got some blood out of the umbilical line... Then they did take that out, and they took out his catheter. But, he'd gotten too cold while they were messing with all that, and his breathing and heart rate dropped some, so now we're just hanging out waiting to make sure it'll stay up and stable on its own. So far so good for the most part. He had a couple times where his O2 saturation dropped a bit (not too terribly far but enough to piss off the monitor), but for the most part all it took was me talking to him and rubbing his head to get it back up :)

So, we're just waiting. They're giving him another couple rounds of antibiotics. The chicken pox culture came back negative so they've stopped the acyclovir... There was a blood culture that came back positive but Dr. K seems to think that it was a contaminated sample rather than an infection. But when the antibiotics are done, then we'll see about me maybe holding him.

Dr. K also said that if he tolerates his feeds well, then sometime this weekend I might even get to nurse him :) I'm not getting too excited though because I haven't even gotten to hold him yet.

Right now there's another trauma patient coming in so he's a bit on the back burner for a few (totally understandable!)


I'll update when I can :)

Y'all are going to get sick of me updating :P

They couldn't get a vein so they put in some stuff in his umbilical tube to break up the clots (they said they would do that earlier but didn't lol), and now we're just waiting for that to work so that we can go ahead and get the bloodwork done. They're checking his ammonia level and blood gases as well as his.... Oh gosh, what did she call it? Bleeding rate? Something like that. They just basically want to make sure he's clotting fast enough while not clotting too fast :)

So again, we have to hurry up and wait ;)

I don't mind it but so much because Mike is at Ron's House doing laundry (he's so domestic :D) and I did want him to be here when I get to hold him the first time :D

My parents are on the way too, so they might be here in time to see it as well.

But they did check his belly to make sure he's digesting the milk, and he's doing great, so they went ahead and increased his feedings from 5cc/hr to 9cc/hr. It's not a big increase, but the more they increase, the closer we are to going home :D

Poor buddy :(

Poor thing :( He's such a hard stick and they pretty much blew all the veins they had. They just tried a scalp one and it didn't work *sigh* He's trying to cry but he's so hoarse he can't :( I just want to cry for him :'(

I'm so impatient

So Belinda's taking blood right now, then she's going to remove the belly button line, and then the catheter and THEN, freaking FINALLY, I get to hold him!!!

She's taking too long lol I told her she shouldn't have told me ahead of time that I get to hold him when she's done :P

Pictures and other randomness

So while we're passing the time until they can take out the belly button tubing and start feeding him, I thought I'd post some pictures :)

Here's from them getting him ready and taking him down to his MRI yesterday










And we saw this on the way back up from MRI and for some reason it made me giggle :P


These are from late last night :) If you notice one of his toes glowing, that's the pulse/ox monitor lol It looks funnier in pictures than it does in person for some reason.















And, of course, my favorite pictures thus far.. Notice anything missing? :D




:D

And now for the randomness...

Some random things I've learned while here.

The main difference between the NICU and the PICU when concerning a newborn like Zach is whether or not the child has been discharged. With a baby his age, had he not been discharged from the hospital already when this happened, he'd be in the NICU (which btw would suck even worse because you can't "room in" there and can only go up four times a day. Yikes!)

The main elevators here have no fourth floor listed, but they do have a 13th floor. I thought that was weird seeing as how I've always heard it was bad luck to have a "13th" floor. I'm still not sure why they have a 13th, but I did find out that the reason they don't have a 4th floor is because the 4th floor is surgery :) We found that out because we took the staff elevator back up here from MRI and saw that it had a 4th floor listed and asked some of the people in the elevator with us lol Yes, we're dorks.

I had more but I forget what it was.

Ooooh! They're here with the boob juice, so I gotta run :) They're going to start off with a tiny tiny bit and then increase it throughout the day. As she increases the feeds, she'll decrease the IV fluids :)

They're not taking out the umbilical line just yet. First she wants to see if she can get blood from it. If not, she'll flush the line with a clot busting solution (hey, that's what she called it lol), and then she'll do labs at 2, and THEN she'll see about taking it out :D

I'll update again when I get new info!