A Peaceful Night in the NICU

It was very busy when we first showed up last night - there's three new babies, and everyone was visiting at once. Finally, people began to trickle out and nurses started on their breaks, leaving the NICU adults eventually as just Adam, me, and Owen's nurse Esil (she's one of our favorites). Adam was holding a very peacefully sleeping Owen and starting to doze a little himself, Esil was charting, and I was working on Owen's blanket. All in all, a very peaceful setting.

And then Owen had the most explosive poop I've ever heard. My kid cracks me up.

Owen Wears Many Hats

Literally. It's pretty chilly in the NICU, so cuddle time also means hat time. Somehow, this 9-weeks-too-early munchkin already has a noggin that's too big for a couple of his hats...but the other hats we have for him are 6+ months, so they're enormous on him.

It looks close to USC colors, but don't worry - it's definitely orange. Just bad lighting. We would never subject our son to USC colors.

This should be video so you could watch the hat slowly squeezing up and popping off his head.

I just love this pose.

One seriously over-sized hat.

We give up on the hat and he becomes a news anchor. Look how he's holding his ear - it's like, "this just in! I pooped!"

Owen is doing really, really well. He's back out from his short dose of bili lights, only hooked up to monitors and a feeding line (so no more IV's/PICC lines), and up to "full" feeds - 20 times his current weight in kilograms, in mL (so since he's 2 kg now, he gets 40 mL every three hours). He's gaining weight so consistently that the nurses don't even trust the scale. We've probably got another week of the "grower/feeder" stage before we can start trying to get him to bottle or breast feed, but we will likely start non-nutritive breast feeding in the near future - it's essentially a practice run to get him used to the idea without any risk of aspirating. And, he might get to switch from the isolette to a normal bassinet in the near future. Always moving in the right direction!

I Shall Call Him...Mini Me

Adam's over his vaccine side effects, so it was his turn to snuggle today. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I got to snuggle for a solid three hours yesterday? At first, Owen was a little pissy about being handled but then you could see him processing - "wait...I know these people...I'm pretty comfortable...zzzzzzzzz". Owen did go a little easier on Adam than on me - snoozed peacefully the whole time, as opposed to with me where he buried his face in my chest almost to the point of smothering himself and dug in when the nurse tried to reposition him. Then, he was all "whip my hair back and forth" to make it look like I wasn't trying as hard as possible to support his head.

Exciting stuff today. They removed the nasal cannula right before we left this afternoon and he's breathing entirely on his own, and he's up to 5 cc's of breastmilk every 3 hours. They'll just keep upping the amount as long as he continues to tolerate it well. He is back under the bili lights for a bit, but the doc explained that it's far more effective once you're actually eating so that you can pass the extra bilirubin in your stool (it wouldn't be a baby blog if there wasn't poop or pee mentioned).

Now for your viewing pleasure, an extremely proud dad and one content baby.

Maybe breathing is for cool kids, after all

Owen's off the vent!!! He's just got a nasal cannula now, and boy is he good at pulling it out. I think he's even got the idea that he's not supposed to, because he tries to get all sneaky about it...he stretches his arms out and then grabs the tubing on his way down like a cheesy date at a movie theater trying to put his arm around you. Then, when the cannula goes back in, he gets little sneezing fits. Other good news - his heart murmur is entirely gone.

We may get to hold him tomorrow - fingers crossed. Adam's a little sick from his TDAP shot yesterday (btw, if you plan on visiting for any length of time, I will insist on you having a whooping cough vaccine) so he's been booted from the NICU until 24 hours after his fever goes down, which hopefully is like...right now. As long as he can't visit Owen though, I'll be taking an extra crazy amount of pictures and video, so I guess you all benefit from Adam feeling under the weather.

I'd say he looks a lot happier off the vent - what do you think?

 

Oh. My. Gah. That is one handsome kid.

Fingers are delicious.

I know babies aren't supposed to be able to smile, but that sure looks like one content kid.

 

Hiccups!

 

Keep an eye out for a good eyebrow raise at the end.

Sorry, bandwidth, I know.

Doing things in order is for squares

I think I already mentioned that there are three milestones for Owen before he can come home - temperature regulation (check), unassisted breathing (almost check), and eating (not sure yet, but more on that in a minute). This isn't quite the normal list of milestones like picking up your head (first month - keep in mind that Owen's "first month" should technically start in October) and rolling over (fourth month).

Well, whoever set those dates didn't check with Owen first. If those pesky NICU nurses aren't going to roll him over when he wants to be rolled over, then dammit, he's going to do it himself. And who cares if it makes him desat and the alarms go off and the nurses and respiratory therapists have mini heart attacks, oh and his mom goes in to a little panic too - at least he's facing the direction he wanted. I'm trying really, really hard to convince him that it's ok to do the breathing milestone prior to the rolling one.

The coolest thing was that last night, Adam and I got to feed him a little. Just a q-tip soaked in milk, but it was really wonderful, and it looked like Owen really enjoyed it.

Let's see, what else happened yesterday...he's out from the lights, and he pooped!

In other news, I'm a really heavy sleeper, and if I don't set an alarm to pump in the middle of the night then I will have to do laundry in the morning...

Also, just a heads up - I'm going to post stuff about Keira here and there, but I know that it's sad and it's far more fun to look at pictures of Owen. It's good to talk about her though. Anything that's going to have Keira material in it, I'll put a (K) in the title so if you're not feeling up to it, you can skip it.

Ok, fun pictures.

Getting a tan and holding Dad's finger

And this is all we could think of with that little eye mask...

Doesn't it look like he just dove in to bed here? This is mid I-don't-want-to-be-facing-this-way tantrum.

Ohmygosh, cranky face.

Holding Mom's (puffy) hand

Not letting go of Mom's (puffy) pinky.

Well hello!

Picture Post!

Fresh after delivery. He looks thoughtful - "hm, wasn't it darker a minute ago?" Or maybe it's, "who's my next pee target?" (It was the respiratory therapist yesterday, by the way. And apparently a hell of a shot)

 Bonding with Nana.

 

 He's like, a 4.5 pound version of Adam. With Weeks feet (not shown, the weak hearted can't handle Weeks feet images).

He's under the UV lights right now, but once he's out I'll get some video up of his little eyebrows. He is cute in his little eye mask though, and all this time in the tanning bed is going to make him tanner than his dad without ever having been outside!

August 13, 2012

On Monday afternoon, I went in for my first regularly scheduled non stress test (something I find to be a bit of a misnomer). The nurse who runs the NSTs, Leigh, is a sweet and wonderful woman, and I'm so glad that she is also one of the lactation consultants. During the NST, I had a handful of contractions and we were unable to consistently have two distinct fetal heartbeats on the monitor, so my doctor (who was watching remotely) called and asked Leigh to send me to L&D for an ultrasound. Nick, from ultrasound, did not have the screen turned such that I could see it, but when he asked the nurse to call my doctor I knew there was a problem. I asked him if he was only able to find one heartbeat, and he answered "I'm sorry honey, but I'm not allowed to say anything." You could tell though, you know. It's hard to keep something like that off your face. The doctor called a couple of minutes later and explained that they were unable to find Keira's heartbeat. She arrived at the hospital a few minutes later and determined that I was going in to labor - I'm not sure if it was the emotional stress of losing Keira so close to the end of the pregnancy, or if my body was trying to get her out, or if my body was trying to save Owen.

Owen Thomas was born at 19:04, weighing in at a whopping 4.5 pounds and 16.5 inches. That's a whole lot of baby for 31 weeks, and I can't even imagine how big he might have been if he could have gone to term. He quacked a couple of times right after he was born, which was music to our ears. It was so reassuring to know that he already has some lung capacity. We did, however, joke about changing his name to Donald, because he really sounded like a duck. Oh, and he took the opportunity to pee all over the NICU crew. Atta boy!

Keira Lynn was delivered at 19:06, at 3.25 pounds and 16 inches. She shouldn't have hidden her face from us for so long, because she was absolutely beautiful. I wish everyone could have met her. She was so sassy in the womb and I'm sure she would've been such a handful, but so much fun. I will treasure the months I had with her forever.

Owen is currently on a vent, but breathing room air. They think they will be switching him from the vent to a vapotherm this afternoon, and we will hopefully be able to hold him tomorrow. He will probably need 3 to 6 weeks in the NICU, but he's doing very well. I can't wait to take him home, although I'm sure that will be a scary moment when we are suddenly responsible for him.

He has the most expressive little face, and it's hard not to mimic him when he furrows his brow or raises his eyebrows. The nurses are all in love with him because he's just so darned cute. My little ladies' man already.

I can't even put in to words how painful it is to lose Keira. At the same time, I am so overcome with joy over Owen. It's really difficult, oscillating between these two emotional extremes, but we're trying to focus on Owen and his health and happiness. He needs us right now, and he is the big bright spot that makes this situation livable.

Picture post to follow, once I can collect them all in one place. You guys gotta see this kid.

"You're my troublemaker"

...said my new OB when I met her today. Apparently, they had only sent the boring half of my medical records when she agreed to take me on as a patient - and pretty much right after I scheduled an appointment, she got the other half. It's ok, everyone loves a challenge! I actually like the new doc quite a bit. She's much friendlier than the ob who was on call during my latest hospitalization - even new doc described on-call doc as "she's...hardcore".

I start NST's twice a week next Monday and get to meet the new maternal fetal medicine specialist the following Monday. Also, for those of you who have yet to place your due date bets, I found out today that the CU docs recommended delivery at 35 weeks since my cholestasis onset was so early. New doc would like to hold off to 37, but she'll go with whatever new MFM says.

In other news, turns out I no longer hate green beans. Maybe a temporary pregnancy thing? And, when I make bread at sea level, it actually rises!

I Touched a Dinosaur's Butt (and I moon a new L&D ward)

First, I mentioned last time that there's not a whole lot of visibility on this trip. Here's the view out the back window:

 

That's cool, just look over your right shoulder to check your blindspot:

Hm. How about the left?

Anyway, I can't say something about touching a dinosaur's butt and then show you boring pictures of an overpacked car. We stopped at the Trail Through Time on the Utah/Colorado border, where there's an active archaeological digsite. They were working on getting out a 2m long femur, which they've been digging out for the last three years, and hope to have done some time next year. Here's a guy casually sitting on a piece of history (it's a little hard to tell in the picture, but that lump under him is the end of the femur):

We walked the lower part of the trail, and there's this one rock with a dinosaur's pelvis stuck in it. I gotta say, it really wasn't that much wider than my own...I don't think it goes with the femur they were digging up. I poked it.

Mom and I got to Camarillo safe and sound Saturday afternoon. Our first stop?

You better believe it. Also, we can count this as my 30 week belly shot.

We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Lost Boys, putting together one of the swings, and making sure it works. Zits has been testing out all of the babies' stuff.

We had a great dinner at El Tecolote (thanks for the recommendation, Chad!). I noticed while we were there that I was actually having really frequent contractions, so despite having no other labor symptoms I was talked in to a quick stop at the hospital. Well, that quick stop ended up being another overnight stay. Even though the doc suspected it was just dehydration, my generally irritable uterus (it's so ornery) made her uncomfortable. I was continuously on the fetal monitor for about 14 hours while I tried to convince her that irritable is normal for me. A lot of the staff at this hospital had trouble believing anything I said, actually...like the lab tech who was sure that I had no idea what I was talking about when I said my right arm is not good for drawing blood. And now I have an enormous bruise and a bunch of stick spots.

On the plus side, Keira turned over and we finally got to see her face, although the tech didn't give me a picture of it. She's beautiful. She looks like a little doll.

I'm really thankful to have had Adam and my mom there through this latest drama (although I wish they had both listened when I said they should go home and get some sleep). Hopefully this is the last real baby excitement for, oh, I dunno, 5-7 weeks.

I've Got Riff Raff in my Hoo Hah

Well ok, I've got riff raff a couple inches above my hoohah - but what an awesome thing to see on the side of a bus (and even more awesome to have my mom exclaim).

We've made it safe and sound to Grand Junction; it was a pretty uneventful drive. With the car this full, it's really a test of your road awareness - you can't see ANYTHING out any of the back windows. And, not surprisingly, there is definitely no threat of anyone getting a blood clot on this 17 hour journey, since I have to pee so frequently. Good thing Mom is so patient :)

Some Bell's Palsy updates:

• As of yesterday, I can taste on the left side of my tongue
• I've got a little bit of a smile on the left - it even engages my cheek.
• I can close my left eye all the way!

We're ready for pj's, a chick flick, and cupcakes. Tomorrow's going to be a flat, boring drive...

What?!? I said I'd start a blog and actually did it?!?

Well, let's see if I can actually do this blogging thing. I have high hopes that I'll post updates frequently about the kiddos. I hope to have something exciting later tonight, but in the meantime, here they are when they were still blueberries.

Exciting road trip details later...