Settling In

Day number 4 at home and so far so good. Nicholas and his mom's are doing very well at home and settling into a bit of a routine. He continues to do well eating and hit 6 lbs today and has grown to 18.5 inches. The more he grows, the more his lungs grow and improve, and the quicker we can get off of this oxygen. Today was his first doctor's appointment and she was very impressed with how well Nicholas is doing, especially considering his rocky start. Our new social outings are doctor's appointments, as we have several lined up for the next two weeks. As long as the reports continue to be good, we are happy.

You will notice in the picture today and green pacifier. This is a very important pacifier, also known as his "binky." It is Nicholas's most prized possession and can never be far from him.

On another topic, warm weather is coming to Madison this week and we are hopeful to get the new stroller out for a walk around the neighborhood. Hope it is "spring" wherever you are too!

So far so good...

We brought Nicholas home this afternoon and so far, so good. We've attaced some pictures of our journey home. I don't think we've ever driven as slow on the way home as today. We'll post later this week but wanted to at least get some pictures of today posted.

Going Home...

Tomorrow is the big day for all of us as Nicholas gets to come home. We've been busy "nesting" and think we are now ready. We took the pictures attached as we were leaving the hospital tonight. This is the last night Nicholas will spend in this corner and in this bassinet. He is eating from the bottle well and in fact, took 60 cc three times today. He is now up to 5lbs 13 ounces. He will be going home on a little oxygen (1/16 of a liter). We will see pulmonary in two weeks and hope to be off the oxygen in a month or two. We'll have many follow-up appointments with general surgery (hernias), opthamology (eyes) and pulmonary (lungs) as well as visits to his pediatrician and home visits from physical and occupational therapy. So, while we're closing one chapter, we're opening a whole new one full of new experiences. We'll get into a new routine at home; our biggest hurdle will be being mobile with the O2, oh and lack of sleep (Melissa and Regan (Nicholas's primary nurses at Rainbow) are more than welcome to fly to Madison and help with those feeds they were never able to do or accomplish well due to a sleepy baby after too much cuddling:)). We'll keep updating the blog so you can continue to monitor Nicholas's growth and milestones . Thanks to everyone for your continues prayers, support and thoughts throughout our 3 month journey (my water broke on December 25th and we're going home on March 25th).

A Quiet Weekend

Before anyone gets to excited, we are not going home just yet. We did get a car seat "fitting" today and mini test. Nicholas loves his car seat (thanks Aunt Darlene and Aunt Dianna) and did well with his pulse ox while seated. As we get closer to discharge, he will sit in the car seat for an hour and have his heart rate and oxygen levels monitored. For those of you who look extra close at the photo's, you will notice that his ng tube is back in. While Nicholas is doing very well with his oral feedings, he does occasionally get "too tired" to eat and needs his feed to be given via the ng. We continue to "plan and prep" for home. We have many new baby items at our house, now we just need a "baby." Nicholas will also have a visit from the pulmonologist (lung doctor) on Monday and we will begin working with home care to get his heart monitor ordered. As an aside for those of you who are "in to the numbers" - Nicholas is 5 lbs 6 oz, and today, the first day of spring, marks day 76 of life. Happy Spring and have a good weekend!

Dreaming of going home

Nicholas continues to progress. He is talking almost all of his bottles by mouth instead of his NG tube. In fact, the NG came out today and they are not going to put it back in unless he can't take the 360ml he needs in a day. He is up to 5lbs 6 ounces and has outgrown a couple of his preemie outfits. He lucked out yesterday as he was suppose to get circumcised, however, he has two inguinal hernias that need to be repaired first. They had him in the room to do the procedure and once they saw the hernias, nixed it. No problem, we all had a better St. Patrick's day as a result. We'll fix the hernias once he gets bigger and his lungs are stronger. He is still on oxygen, 50cc via nasal cannula (it's around 1/20 of a liter). His hematocrit is still low (24) but they will continue to monitor that. We have hopes of going home sometime next week. We anticipate going home on oxygen; we'll see what the next week brings. His head ultrasounds and eye exams have all been normal which is a huge blessing! We hope you all had a nice St. Patrick's Day yesterday and we hope to have more news of home in our next blog.

Hurray, they turned my oxygen down

Today our friends at Epic had a baby shower for us. It was great seeing everyone and we got some very nice and thoughtful gifts. Nicholas is one lucky man. Now, we have to start unpacking the suit cases we brought back from Cleveland that are in his room and start getting organized with his stuff.

Nicholas's oxygen was changed from high flow to low flow this morning. Basically, he is no longer getting the pressure to help his lungs inflate, rather just the boost of oxygen. He is currently at 1/16th of a liter of oxygen. This is the amount of oxygen they would let him go home on, so, we're hopeful that home is just around the corner. He continues to take more feedings via bottle and hopefully, tomorrow they will go to a total amount in a day that he must take (on demand feedings) versus feeding him 45 cc every 3 hours. He is currently 17 inches long and 5lbs 2 ounces. Nicholas shares a room with 6 other babies now (we got moved to a medium size room late last week). We found him with his hat over his eyes the other day; we can only imagine what he was thinking. We are going to start our discharge education tomorrow; that way, when we get word that we're ready to go, we've accomplished everything we need to do.

I'm So Big!

Nicholas continues to grow and amaze us! He is teetering on reaching a new milestone weight of 5 lbs today. He is filling out his preemie diapers and preemie clothes well - we might be moving to the "newborn" size. He is also increasing his periods of "wakefulness", which really makes the mom's happy. As you can see in the pictures, he is very expressive and does smile often (now if we could just capture that smile on camera!) He continues to eat every three hours (something he really enjoys) and takes 2-3 feeds by bottle, 1 by breast (though he likes to practice often) and the rest by NG. We are very slowly weaning the oxygen - we can't do to much to fast with this sensitive little guy. Otherwise, we all continue to adjust and are staying status quo. This afternoon we will have bath time and kangaroo.