Weight on the board is 1 860 grams!  A gain of 40 grams! Excellent job!

I’m expecting to see a loss in his weight tomorrow, I’m not sure it has gone up as much as it has appeared to.
Oxygen is at 24% awesome!

Nurse today is the same one as yesterday. She says some smaller events through the night, good boy all morning. 

Last night he was slightly cold at 36.5… (36.7 is an ok temp.) The nurse last night turned his incubator up from 27 to 28.5… Nurse this morning turned him back down a bit.

Time for cares,   he has pooped a little! After cares he is wide awake, but calm and happy.  We give him some milk swabs and binky,  he still doesn’t look tired so we cover him up to remove interesting things to look at. Hopefully less stimulation will help him sleep.

After 10 minutes I lift just the corner of his blanket and peek at him.  His eyes are open,  just looking up.

I wonder what he is thinking.

He is getting older,  while he should still have been inside mom for a while yet.

As he gets older he will be awake longer portions of the day.

I slowly lift the curtain,  his eye wanders over to my face and he gives a smile. Silly social boy. His little hand has escaped from his swaddle,  fingers wiggling slowly.

I put my finger in his hand and he grabs on.  He just loves love and attention.  With my other hand I give him his binky.  After  a while his eyes close and his grip loosens, i remove the binky. He has begun to drift off. I give him a bit then remove my finger from his grip and quietly close up the incubator again.

Lunch time.

Back up to NICU. His NAVA level has been turned down to 2.0 from 2.3. He is still on the same percent oxygen! Edi peaking around 5 still!

They were saying possibly switching to CPAP after we were between 1.5 to 2.0 on nava level so we are getting there!

Time for cares,  we start slightly early.  Temp is good at 36.9. His diaper has poo.

Removed old diaper, cleaned and inspected area, inguinal hernia still present, applied CPC and replaced diaper with RFI one from supply, no further discrepancies noted. All IAW local instruction.

I move out of the way,  the nurse listens to his lungs sounds good. I hear some fart sounds. I think RT just filled his diaper again!

Respiratory therapist swaps him to nasal mask. Says he thinks RT just had a blow out.

Another diaper change,  RT is pretty wiggly, slide a fresh one under him before removing the dirty one,  the  diaper is nearly leaking out the back already. He has his spo2 sensor on one foot, his hospital I’d tag on the other, I manage to not hold his I’d band out of the way far enough when he wiggles one small speck of poop gets on it.  After the diaper change is complete the ID band will get shredded and be replaced with a clean one.

The Dr. comes by she is happy with how RT is doing after weaning his NAVA level to 2.0. And discuss CPAP in the future. We ask if she wants a lower PEEP before switching to CPAP. She decides to lowered his PEEP now too! (constant pressure to hold lungs open ) from 9 down to 8.

Then we discuss his needs down the road, still too early to know, but good to talk about every couple weeks.

So far he will likely need appointments once every 2 months for the first year at developmental clinic to check his neurological development. (Most premature baby’s require this check up) she says best case scenario she thinks he wont be sent home on oxygen. Nothing else known beyond that for now.

Some additions depend on how well he does when we start trying bottle feeding. Still a ways to go before then, but they are impressed with the steps forward he is taking!

And swapped from Theofalin to caffeine, his Theofalin levels are outside the therapeutic range right now so it’s not doing much currently anyways. Both medications help with apnea. Theofalin also works as a bronchial dilator. She says caffeine also helps his chronic lungs recover.

Skin to skin time on mom! Goes smooth! He tries to go facenterline on mom burrowing,  and tries to suckle.  Goofy kid,  knows he is close. Uneventful otherwise.

1700 skin time is up.  Put him back,  cares,  slightly cold, 36.6. Just pee.

Dinner,  back up to NICU.

Nurse tonight is one of his primaries!  The one that brought in a blanket her mom made,  there is another blanket from her!  This one is even more adorable than the last! It has anchors on it on one side and the other is this soft fuzzy white with raised polka dots!  Too cute!

The nurses mom told her the last one was just a practice one, to me they are both perfect!

We are so grateful for these nurses and this is beyond wonderful.  I hope her mom knows how truly grateful we are.

We thank her profusely and ask her to pass on our gratitude.  ❤

One of the respiraroty therapists stops by and checks in on us and RT, she has not had him in a bit but checks in on him periodically!

2000 cares, temp is 37, just pee. Goes smoothly, swap top nasal prongs,  he calms down after a little bit. After he calms down I give him some milk sponge on a stick and binky time to help get him relaxed.

Close his incubator and put down the blanket to make it dark,  he is calm for a few minutes then realizes no one is watching him or giving him hand hugs and is not quite ready for sleep. 200 bpm heart rate.   I go back in there,  give him hand hug and binky,  he calms down in a few seconds.  He definately likes knowing people are around. I wonder if they have bad dreams, maybe about uncomfortable dirty diapers,  binkys that are just out of his reach or other baby fears and things he does not like.

Hopefully it is mostly good dreams if he does dream.  Milk swabs, skin time and fun stuff.

After a bit I’m able to sneak my hands out. He is an amazing little boy!

We love you more than words can express.