Some More Ups and Downs

This week has been a very stressful week, I have basically lived at the hospital.

Jacob's having less spells but the spells he's having are so severe they have had to bag him three times this week. The first one happened on Sunday, the same day as my baby shower. Hanh, Amber and Angela threw me a wonderful shower. The games were great, we received just about everything we could ask for and it was nice to be able to spend a few hours away from the hospital. Mike and I arrived at the hospital at 7pm that night to learn that Jacob had to be bagged at 5pm. It was just heart breaking because it had been two weeks since the last time they had to bag him and his spells were getting farther and farther apart. The second one occur ed when Mike's mom was bottle feeding Jacob. I feel so terrible that she had to experience that especially since he was in her arms when it happened. And the last one happened last night at 2am. Mike is in Colorado for a much needed vacation, so when I learned of the latest spell I went to the hospital and spent the night with Jacob. I got there at 4am and he was wide awake and stayed awake for the next 2 hours. He did have a spell when I was holding him but he was able to resolve it on his own. Jacob will be 36 weeks weeks tomorrow, most preemies grow out of apnea spells by now. I was so looking forward to bringing him home but now it appears that he will be staying in the NICU for a few more weeks.

Jacob has had some ups this week. He was moved into a crib. He has been able to maintain his body temperature and no longer needs a warmer. He was also taken off the high flow cannula and placed on a regular cannula. He's still on 1 liter flow but his oxygen needs are so low, basically at room air, that they are thinking be might be able to come down to 0 liter. The doctor is not convinced that his apnea is due to oxygen needs rather she just thinks he still needs time to outgrow them. Everyone keeps saying "we've never sent a kid to preschool with apnea" I know that supposed to make me feel better but it doesn't because no one can tell me why he still has apnea and when it will go away. They realize that preschool age is 4 right? That's not comforting.

Bottle feeding is going okay. The first couple of times he was given a bottle he guzzled them up. The next few times he only drank half and then fell asleep and the incident with Mike's mom feeding him was really bad. Alana, his primary nurse took the time to teach us how to bottle him, because bottling a preemie is different then a full term baby. Jacob will guzzle down his milk and not take breaths in between and full term babies know to take a break and breathe. We have to pull the bottle away from his mouth and make him breathe. So it looks like mommy and daddy are going to be the only ones feeding him for awhile.

My boy turned 10 weeks old on Wednesday and as of today he's a whopping 5 pounds 6 ounces. He's getting so big and has a double chin. I love chubby babies.

Hopefully next week will bring more ups then downs.