Saturday, January 31, 2009
day 56
it is day 56...ethan is gestational age of 37 weeks and 1 day. he was weaned to an open crib yesterday and is doing great. andy fed him last night and he sucked down almost 2oz in 4 minutes...wow!! the only thing keeping him from coming home at the moment is that he hasn't pooped on his own in weeks. they have given him two suppository glycerin chips to clean his system out hoping that he would then continue to poop on his own. he obviously hasn't yet. hopefully in the next day or so he will get the excess iron in his system out and begin going on his own again. i think i mentioned the iron theory...if not...i was taking an iron supp. on top of prenatal vitamins and they are fortifying his breastmilk with iron and giving him vitamins that has iron in it...so that equals a lot of iron for such a small system. so i stopped taking my supp. and they decreased his amount of the fortifying...so hopefully it helps. he definitely is working on something. come on ethan...poop!!!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
some good news
well...we are looking at maybe this weekend for Ethan to come home. i am not getting my hopes up or even thinking he is coming home until i see him in an open crib. then it will be more of a reality. the good news is...he had another eye exam yesterday (which was horrible to listen to and then to see his little eyes all red, puffy and with indentations on them from the tool they use to keep his eyelids open...horrible) and he no longer shows any abnormalities in the blood vessels behind his eyes. they are perfect...which means no more eye exams and no issues with sight. YEAH!
they will attempt to wean him of the isolette again maybe tomorrow and then we will see what happens after that happens. he is feeding fantastically and is doing everything right except for pooping (which they believe is why he failed the first wean). i think me taking iron supplements on top of prenatal vitamins and on top of them fortifying his breastmilk has backed him up a bit. i stopped taking my supplement to see if that helps him out at all. they have taken x-rays to look at his bowels and it looks perfect. so we will wait and see what happens over the next couple of days. poop ethan poop!!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
number cars (& are there ever a lot of them)
we spend countless hours finding, counting, identifying numbers and lining up the "number cars" (as deemed by eli). eli loves to identify the numbers and what a great tool for learning. this line up was done by eli himself...impressive!!!
minor set back
so... eagerly i walked into the nicu expecting to see ethan in his open crib, but was shocked to see him still in his isolette. the nurse informed me that after being in the isolette with no heat just bundled in two blankets, he stopped feeding well. so they made the decision last night at 9pm to turn back on the heat and unbundle him to see what happens. he is back to feeding well and they will attempt again once he has eaten well for 24 hours. so we are looking at maybe wednesday now as his coming home day. let's cross our fingers and hope he does better the second time around.
truly for his sake though, this is probably a good thing to have him stay a few more days. he has his stressful eye exam tomorrow morning which may wear him out and possibly his circumcision (which isn't too pleasant either). if we were to bring him home after those two procedures, he may have had difficulties with eating or adjusting. so this truly is a blessing in disguise. we will just hope that it goes better for a wednesday discharge.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)