To go along with the previous post

Seth is 18 inches long. You give him another few weeks and he'll be just as big as all the other newborns!

Look how big I am!

Seth is in an open crib! Hurray! This was taken on Tuesday. He is just improving by leaps and bounds! He is also on a regular nose cannula. And we have started the long process of teaching him how to feed from a bottle and then eventually to nursing. His current weight is 4 lbs 6 oz. Today he had laser surgery on his eyes. I mentioned ROP earlier, Retinopathy of Prematurity. This is why he had the laser surgery done. He isn't too bad off with the abnormal blood vessels in his eyes, but they didn't want it to get any worse because it could lead to detachment of the retina. It is my understanding that they went in and zapped the abnormal blood vessels so they wouldn't continue growing abnormally. And I like to use the word abnormal a little too abnormally. :) Anyways, that surgery was done around 1:30 this afternoon. He is still on a ventilator and they are just waiting for him to wake up so they can get him off. Hopefully he'll be fine and it won't be days like the last surgery. Seth is such a miracle!

Sunday August 24th

3 lbs 15 oz and counting!

Well, as the title says, Seth is nearly 4 lbs! Todd and I were reflecting on how big he's gotten. When he was first born, the width of Todd's finger was bigger than his leg. Now Seth's leg is bigger. He's putting on some fat. But life hasn't been without it's ups and downs these past several days. Last Tuesday Seth went back into surgery to have his stoma (the opening of his intestines there on his tummy, sometimes I refer to it as his ostomy) opened up a little more. It was too restrictive and wasn't letting very much pass out. The doctors are wondering if this is what is causing all the ups and downs we are having with him. Just when he seems to be doing better he would start to act sick again and his tummy would get all bloated. But all his blood work keeps showing up negative for infections. After surgery it took almost five days to get him off the ventilator again. So as of yesterday he is off the breathing tube and is doing pretty well. Today we were told that they would start feedings again. I know that will make him very happy to have his tummy filled again. He would always get mad when they stopped feedings because he would get hungry!

Seth is doing really well this week. He has had no episodes of apnea. He has started his feedings again. Right now he is getting 6 cc's every three hours. Every 12 hours they increase it 2 cc's. So tonight at 11 p.m. he will go up to 8 cc's. He's tolerating the feedings very well. He's such a stinker! On Sunday he pulled his feeding tube out four times. So the nurse put little socks on his hands to try to prevent him from grabbing and pulling. Not to be outsmarted, he decides that all he needs to do is use his tongue and he can push it out. Now there's a smart kid! Maybe here in a week or two he'll be able to try nippling his feedings a little!

So another thing if you want to read up about is ROP, Retinopathy of Prematurity. Seth's eyes are looked at each week to keep an eye on this condition. Right now he has stage 2. http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/rop/

We love the little guy so much!

The latest

So Seth is having a little set back. For some reason he has been having a few episodes of apnea, he decides he's not going to breathe. So while the doctors are trying to figure what's causing it we've been taken from our feedings again. He's on antibiotics in case it's an infection. He was given more blood in case having low hetacrit levels was the cause. And he's also been put on hydrocortisol. Biology lesson: We have adrenal glands which produce cortisol for our bodies. Preemies, well, you know, everything is premature. So he isn't producing cortisol on his own, or not enough. What is cortisol for? Well, no expert here, but one reason is to keep the pH level of your blood in sync, or something like that. I think I could be a NICU nurse by the time Seth comes home. Forget going to nursing school. So this too could be causing it. They did a lumbar puncture to get some spinal fluid just to make sure there is no infection in the spinal fluid. And of course they took blood. Blood is very expensive. I was looking at my hospital bill and did you know it costs over a thousand dollars for two units of blood! Man, I and they want us to just donate it? hahaha Oh well.

Ok, two things here that I've learned (out of many):

Too much oxygen can cause blindness in a preemie.
Too much antibiotics damages inside their ears.

That's why they constantly monitor these levels when using oxygen and antibiotics.

Holding my sweet baby!