Caringbridge journal - 1

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
No end to my sleepless nights I suppose...
Rachel's back in the hospital. After coming home yesterday evening, we went to bed and around 1:00 last night, she woke up with a horrible headache. We drove in to the ER and found she had pretty high blood pressure. All tests show that her organs are fine so it's not particularly alarming (as long as she gets proper treatment of course) but it's not fun for her to be back!
Brennan is still doing great -- he's off the CPAP machine and on just a little pressurized air. We'll get to hold him much more often if we ever wake up enough to visit!
-Ken

Thursday, October 1, 2009
I am finally home, hopefully for good this time! My preeclampsia is now under control, but I am pretty weak. It will take a bit to recover. Brennan is doing great! He is breathing completely on his own and no longer needs the bili lights. He had his first xrays the other day. He was throwing up his feeds, and they found out he had a ton of air in his tummy. They stoppped his feeds for the night to give him a break, and now he's doing just fine! Since he doesn't need the bili lights anymore, the nurse put a little outfit on him, and it's just so precious!

Monday, October 5, 2009
Brennan is doing wonderfully! They moved him to another room with other bigger babies, the feeder-growers, who are healthy and just learning to eat and grow. Brennan had his IV removed so now they are trying to get him up to full feeds as soon as possible. He's almost there, but his bowels are still immature and he gets backed up, which makes him spit up his feeds. But he's almost at full feeds now (32 mls/feeding) and will hopefully start gaining weight soon! He's starting to stay awake a little while we hold him, and he makes some really funny faces! If he keeps progressing like he should, they'll start trying to breast/bottle feed in a week or so! One more step towards coming home!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Brennan is now on 33 ml feedings. He has pretty bad reflux and they're really stuffing his tummy so they can keep the IVs out. His bed is tilted up so far he's practically standing in it! The feeds go in really slowly, over an hour. They tried changing it to 45 mins but it made him spit up more. Poor guy! He's also been having more apnea spells, which can be really scary for mama when it takes him awhile to come out of it! I got to kangaroo him todday - that's when I hold him on my chest skin-to-skin. Brennan really seems to like it, much more than being wrapped up in a blanket! Brennan also started pooping on his own (yay!) and today I got to change my first poopy diaper! Ah, the things that make a NICU mom happy!!

Sunday, October 11, 2009
Brennan is now over four pounds! He was two weeks old on Saturday. I can't believe I am the mommy of a two week old!! He's becoming more alert when he's awake, and he's much better at focusing his eyes so they're not rolling all over the place. He is also working on sucking his fingers, but it's so hard to figure out how to get them into his mouth! He's getting better at it though.
Brennan now takes an hour and 15 minutes to eat. We're hoping he grows out of the reflux soon. He's still having apnea spells, and a lot of them are related to the reflux. He can't come home until he's gone a whole week without having a spell! I've had several chats with Brennan to explain this to him, but he has a mind of his own! :) This week we should be able to start trying to breast feed. Hopefully he will catch on quickly, because I want my little man to come home!