October 16 Baby Update

Daddy's teaching baby bad habits

Jen update: I am discharged.  Doctor wants to remove my stables tomorrow or Tuesday - why does that make me nervous?  Oh, right - I'm afraid it will hurt.

Tiny update:  The preliminary reading of Tiny's second ECG came back from the doctor at Riley Children's Hospital.  It appears as though Tiny has some thickening in his heart and that may be effecting his oxygen level.  I'm not going to try and explain how that works.  At this point it looks like it is probably something he will grow out of in a few months, but they will want to follow up on it regularly as he's growing to make sure it does correct itself. The doctor here wants to be a step ahead because he is somewhat concerned about the possibility of his oxygen level problem being related to infection, so...

Last night the doctors decided to give Tiny an IV for antibiotics and nutrition.  After attempting 3 times and blowing the vein 3 times... they were running low on options.  The doctor decided to attempt a delicate procedure - putting the IV into his belly button.  It had been 6 hours since Tiny had eaten - at all - and they were not going to feed him before attempting this.  At about 8pm we headed down to our room to do my nightly check in with the nurses and allow room for the doctor to do this "sterile procedure".

Somewhere around 1:30am I awoke to a tall slender Asian man at the side of my bed.  Fortunately, the doctor is a tall slender Asian man.  He wanted to let me know that the procedure had been finished and they decided they would continue feeding him orally for now.  I thanked him and went quickly back to sleep... I'm not sure if there was anything else "important" that he said in that conversation.

This morning Tiny's bili-ruben count had gone down a little.  The doctors chose to keep him under the Bili light and on the Bili blanket for the day, just to make sure it continues to trend downward.  They will recheck tomorrow morning, if it has gone down (under 8), they will get rid of the lights and check it again on Tuesday morning to make sure it is still going down.

Tiny has been eating a LOT today - they've pushed down nearly 3oz a feeding for at least 3 of his "meals".  The doctors are insisted that he needs to be very hydrated to help thin the walls of the heart (if that's the issue).  To me it feels like they want to make him fatten up a bit.  Oi, his mamas working to keep up with him, but not quite able to do it yet.

This afternoon he decided (after a stern warning from a kind nurse early in the day) that he did not like the IV in his belly button - so he pulled it out.  Ugh.  They tried for quite a while to put it back in but ended up abandoning that port as well.  Tiny will be getting shots of antibiotic instead, a few times a day.  He will only be getting milk (breast or formula) - via bottle for the moment and they are insisting that the nurses need to try and get him to take at least 3 oz each time.

That's it for now.  Tiny is sleeping quietly and peacefully most of the time.  His blood sugars have been good (somewhat unstable when he goes several hours without nutrition or is jostled and poked a lot).  We are wrapping up our evening routine and will be headed to bed shortly.  Mr. Crum works tomorrow for the first time since baby was born.  I think he's wishing he could be here, but we need him to be doing his work thing.