"Once upon a time there was this sad hippo thing...."

So we actually have some stuff to report back for Eli. First up, Eli has an inguinal hernia. So that means basically some of his intestines are in his scrotum. Kinda cool, I got to feel it. If you push on them it goes right back into the right spot. It doesn't hurt him at all. The only problem is that they fall back down where they aren't supposed to go. So we resolve this with hernia repair surgery, which he will have done after he is discharged. They don't do surgery on little guys at Danbury Hospital. So we will probably go to Children's in Hartford. As long as it doesn't give him any trouble its something we can wait a little while to do.
Next, the results of the echo came in. He doesn't have an infection in his heart. They are a little concerned with his PDA that still hasn't closed. So the doctor recommended using medication to close it. If you remember I blogged about this before. The optimal treatment is just letting the PDA close on its own, because the meds have some side effects that we don't like, especially on the kidneys. The doctor feels that we need to use the meds because he's starting to get some fluid buildup in his lungs. So to decrease the workload on his kidneys, they are stopping the feedings for the time being. As soon as the meds work he will go right back up to the 15cc's he was up to.
But besides that, he's doing great. Really snuggly and cuddly today, it was awesome. His nurses got him a little Halloween outfit to wear seeing as I didn't get him one because I didn't think he would be wearing clothes yet. His nurse tonight likes to make sure that his bedding and his outfit match. So she has him hooked up for the next two days. It's the little things! Thanks to Jesse Catty n Norah coming to visit yesterday and bringing us some tasty meatloaf!
Jon's grandmother went to be with Jesus yesterday. He's heading down to Florida for the services tomorrow. Pray for him and his family. Thanks for all your prayers. Please pray that this medication works on his heart and he does not suffer and side effects.

"this is the first time I've held a baby standing up"

Eli was a baby apple for Halloween according to his nurse. I think he was an angry apple....

Ya ya I know...I'm a slacker...

Sorry I have just been sooo tired. All good stuff to report! Eli has basically spent the last two days eating, sleeping, pooping, and cuddling. His feedings right now are at 10ccs every 3 hours and as long as everything goes well at the next feeding time he will be upped to 12ccs every three hours. This schedule is called "double bumped" where they increase his feedings twice a day. They are shooting to get him up to around 20ccs every 3 hours and once they get there, we can stop the TPN. This means that we would only have to keep his IV in until he's done with his antibiotics. He had a repeat Echo to take a look at his heart. His murmur is really loud which probably means that the PDA is very small and about to close or he might possibly have an infection in his heart. The PDA should close up on its own and if he has an infection in his heart, he would have to have 6 weeks of antibiotics instead of the 10 days that he has to have now. Doc thinks its pretty unlikely that he does have an infection in his heart, his vitals are great, but they have to thorough for these lil guys! So will let you know when I know about that. As for his breathing he is doing great on CPAP and is cycling off of it for three hours at a time to a regular nasal canula. He did great yesterday on the nasal canula. Today he had some desats while I was holding him but then once he got back into his nest he was fine. They are trying him in regular clothes and swaddled instead of being nakey all the time (Kiki I know you are happy about that) to see if he is starting to self regulate his temp. So far so good. Tomorrow I'll have to bring in the preemie clothes, the pic I got was of him in a newborn size, and he's swimming in it. And he now weighs.....3 lbs 8 oz!! Yesterday he was 3 lbs 4 oz, they are happy with one ounce a day. What a fatty!! He even has a couple extra chins going on right now!!! So cute! I'm going to sleep at home tonight. It'll be his first night here without one of us here with him...but I'm beyond exhausted and have to take care of myself to keep making the milk that this kid keeps drinking like a mad man! Been cuddling with him a lot :) Started reading Peter Pan to him, the real version, he seemed to like it was making lots of faces while I was reading. Lord of the Rings next, the kids gotta get a jump start on all the good books. Getting lots of good food to eat. Zach made us chocolate chip cookies that were awesome and Trish dropped off some pasta yesterday that was sooo good. We are so blessed! Please pray for Jon's family. His grandmother is not doing well and Gramma is on her way down to Florida right now to be with her.

Here are some pics...the nicer quality ones are from yesterday I think...He already looks bigger today than these pics

 swimming in newborn size clothes, you can see one of the extra chins peeking out though!

the nurse says his cone head will go away..."you don't see anyone walking around with a cone head" His hair is also a lot lighter than in this picture. He's gonna be a blondy

love this picture 

Sunday Sunday Sunday

We've have had another great day. Daddy stayed over night with Eli. Omie, Grampa and I showed up in the morning. The goal of the day for me was to rest more, which I did. Eli and I got couddle time from noon til 3. He's getting 6 ccs of milk every three hours now. He even pooped on his own! Gramma and Grampy came for a visit this afternoon. Eli was so happy to see them and is missing both sets of grandparents now that they are back home. He weighs 3 lbs 4 oz now! He has graduated for being feisty to having a full blown temper, he lets you know in no uncertain terms when he is not a happy camper. His blood culture that they took yesterday morning so far is negative. It needs to remain negative for 48 hours before it is officially negative, but so far so good. Tomorow he will get the central line put back in as long as the culture remains negative. Good night everyone, thank you for all your prayers.  Anddd here is what he's doing right at this exact moment. 

2 Weeks Old!

So the last two days have been great. Yesterday he got the second part of his transfusion and wasn't doing very well with the feedings. Very spunky though, you can tell that between the blood and the antibiotics he is feeling much better. The little stinker was throwing a tantrum and pulled out his OG tube, then ripped the tape that was holding it to his face off too. He's like his daddy and doesnt like anything sticky I think. Yesterday we got to cuddle for a couple hours....Today I held him skin to skin for SIX WHOLE HOURS!!!!!!!!  He spent a lot of the day with me and the rest of the time he was in his incubator, he was very active, arms and legs going everywhere. He managed to take his CPAP off too. Pretty impressive. He did good with digestion. He's getting 4 cc's every 3 hours. Pooped on his own and peed on his mom.  He weighs 3lbs 3oz, what a moose! Eli got to talk to both Oma and Great-Gram on the phone today, pretty cool :)

Uncle Fish and Kiki took me to lunch and then spent the day working on Eli's room. They put together his dresser and arranged the furniture so everything would fit. It looks awesome! The Durfee's came for a visit, it was good to see them. Omie and Grandpa were in and out all day. Gramma and Grampie are coming tomorrow. Eli is very excited to see his Grampie and spend some time with his daddy who is off the next two days!

A few other cool things going on. A friend of a friend my mom goes to church with was extremely generous and sent us some adorable preemie clothes and an encouraging note. Her twins were born at 27 weeks! Thank you so much Danielle. Also, a mom of a preemie that "graduated" from the NICU stopped by with some clothes that she had bought and asked the nurses to give them to one of the babies. Eli got these. He's gonna be one well dressed lil man, once they let him wear clothes! Once he graduates, I'll have to do the same thing. Our church family is starting to bring us dinner. Thanks Jason for the pizza! We are getting taken such good care of, that's for sure. 

Praise God for all the blessings he is showering on our family! Please keep praying for our lil guy

Proof that duck face and throwing up duces is always attractive..especially after you have a baby

Another Day in the NICU

So Eli had another good day. We started the day with an hour of snuggle time. This was the first time I got to hold him since Sunday, so I was happy and so was he. Baby spent most of the day resting. He had a few desats but nothing to write home about. Overall he's been tolerating his feedings very well too. No poops so far though, so hopefully in the next few hours we get one. Because he's been having so many blood draws, his levels of red blood cells are really low and seeing as he's just a lil guy he can't replace the lost cells fast enough. So today we got our first transfusion. To put it into perspective, he has 3 ounces of blood in his entire body. 1 ounce= 30mL, each blood draw is 1-2 mLs, plus he gets his blood sugar checked. Over the last few days this has started to take it toll, and become really evident on the CBC, his hct is 27 for all you medical peeps out there. So he got 13cc's of blood today and will be getting the same amount tomorrow. He tolerated it well, he's already more pink.
So we finally got the results of the blood culture, it is a staph infection, it hasn't cleared yet and because of that they think it might be in his central line. So this evening his central line was removed and he will now be getting his TPN through a peripheral IV. So far the results are negative on the lumbar puncture but the cultures grow for three days.
Eli is moving around even more than he has been, love to see him feeling better. His cry is so funny though I think it sounds like an angry kitten, Omie thinks it sounds like a little mouse. I'll have to get a video on here so ya'll can here it. He weighs 2lbs 15oz, he was down to 2lbs 9oz so thats pretty darn good. He'll probably be three pounds by the end of the weekend. Anddd I have to go to the doctor tomorrow because I have this rash all over my neck and on my hands. We think its either hives or allergic reaction to these gowns they make us wear in here that you've seen in all the pics. But after a breakdown thinking I got the baby sick, I was told to go get it checked out to make sure it's nothing serious.

^This is how much 13cc's of blood is

Wednesday(I need to start getting more creative with the blog titles)

Eli had a great day today. He spent most of the day resting. At noon he got switched off the vent to the regular CPAP. He's doing really well being on it, though at times he needs a little bit of oxygen. He's still a little sick so we won't told it against him. At noon he also got some milk, 2 ccs every three hours. So far he has been digesting it well, no aspirate and he pooped!!!! Way to go lil man! If he continues like this, they will increase. He had the dreaded lumbar puncture at around two and did super super well with it. The neonatologist did the procedure right in the room and everything went well. He had his nurse that takes wonderful care of him with him the whole time, so that made me feel really good. We should get results some time tomorow. Hung out with Gramma, Omie, and Grampa today. We got to go see Lisa's new baby, she is soo beautiful. Love seeing her and all her brothers and sisters wanting to get a turn to hold her. It's funny how big a normal sized newborn looks to me now! Caesar and Kerri brought us dinner. So awesome to see them and so nice of them to drive all the way up here to bring us a meal. It was sooo good. Eli is even more spunky today. Loud cry, doing karate kicks, trying to push his nurse away, and lots of squirming around. I love it, he has quite the personality already. If he continues to behave, we can get back to skin to skin tomorrow. I can't wait!! So I'm hanging out here for a little while longer, they have to do some blood work at ten, I like to stay so he can hold my hand...err pinky. Probably more for me than him seeing as he's such a tough guy. Then he's gonna spend the night with Gramma again. Thank you God for starting to heal this lil guy so quickly. Keep the prayers coming!

Thanks Omie for the pics

Look at the nice full belly ^^

Daddy taking his temperature

 Getting new bedding cause he peed on his old stuff! 

Tuesday

Hi all! We were blessed with a good  night last night and a good day today! Last night he had less episodes of desaturation while being on the new machine. He even pooped once which is a good sign and if he continues to behave himself, they will start giving him some milk again tomorrow. He's definitely starting to feel better. We know this because he's having less episodes of desaturation, he's more feisty when we wake him up, and he's starting to breath more above the vent. They were considering getting him off this machine and putting him back on to normal CPAP tonight but the nurse said that it would be better to let him have a little more time letting the machine give him some breaths, so he can just sleep and let the antibiotics do their thing. Plus when he gets into a very deep sleep,  its basically the machine doing all the work still. But overall, there is a noticeable difference from yesterday. Yesterday it was basically just the machine doing all the breathing for him, so scary. I spoke with the doctor, we should be finding out exactly what kind of bacteria is growing by morning. They do know however that the antibiotics hes on now are working, but once they know exactly what bug it is, he will get a more specific antibiotic.

Tomorrow he will have to get a lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis. The doc says its highly unlikely that he has it, seeing how well he's responding already to the antibiotics however better safe than sorry. The doctor said that his infection is not at a point where its life threatening, even if it is meningitis because we caught everything so early. He says if it is meningitis the antibiotic treatment will just be a lot longer in duration. I just hate that the lil guy has to go through getting poked in the back. The idea of having a needle in my back, freaks me out and was one of the biggest reasons why I didn't get an epidural (that and there wasn't really time even if I wanted one) and was planning on doing a water birth. So for him to have it done is going to be super hard for me. But its necessary and thank God that we have the ability to do tests like this.

He definitely has a lot more spunk, is cry is not only a lot stronger than it has been but a lot louder too. They say in the NICU is the only place you are glad when your baby cries and when your baby poops. This evening when I was changing his diaper it took me forever because he was squirming around so much and kicking his legs all over the place. He is a champ though when they do his heel sticks to check his blood sugars, he doesn't cry but he holds on to my pinky and squeezes real hard when it happens.  This evening he was also trying to push his CPAP off. I had a chat with him about how if he starts breathing better we can work on getting it off, so hopefully he listens. 

Gramma has been with us all day, hanging out with us and then made some AMAZING chicken pot pie and peach cobbler for dessert. YUMYUMYUM. She's also spending the night with Eli tonight to let me have a chance to get a little rest in my own bed. Omie is coming down tomorrow. Have I mentioned how wonderful our family has been, taking such such good care of us, cuz they have and I can't say it enough. 

Thank you everyone for your prayers, please keep them coming, especially that everything goes smoothly with the LP