Good news: Landen was regulating his temperature on his own, he didn't need an IV anymore, and his bilirubin level was way down. That meant he could be moved into a crib (which was good because his isolette had mysteriously stopped working over night). When we walked in and saw him in that crib we were stoked!! He was another step closer to coming home!
Bad news: We were told that Landen had had 1 occurrence of apnea the night before. He stopped breathing while he was sleeping. Babies do this all the time for a few seconds, but after 20 seconds he still hadn't resumed so the nurse gently put her hand on his back. This was enough to trigger his brain to tell his lungs to start breathing again. Often with preemies their brains are underdeveloped so it takes them a little time to remember to do all the stuff we don't even think twice about. All-in-all it was a relatively minor incident ... but any instance of apnea means an automatic 7-day stay for monitoring. We were so upset!! It had been looking like he'd be home in a couple more days and now he wasn't coming home for a week. The doctor said that since she didn't see any other reason to keep him and her gut was telling her it wasn't going to be an ongoing issue, she would order a pneumogram (breathing study) to see if anything came up. If the results were good we'd be able to shave a couple of days off of that mandatory 7-day stay. He passed the test with flying colors so we just had to wait it out. Two nights later he had one more little episode but he corrected it himself in 15 seconds with no intervention.
More good/bad news: The doctors noticed a heart murmur so they ordered an echo cardiogram to check it out. The test showed a small PDA - a flap in his heart that didn't close completely when he was born. The are super common, especially in preemies, and they tend to close on their own over time. In fact, the cardiologist said his heart was normal and just to follow up with his pediatrician. So bad news - he's got a hole in his heart, good news - it's normal and should correct on its own.
So that was a whirlwind of a morning!! The next 5 days of our NICU stay largely consisted of Landen sleeping and us feeding him. They were monitoring him and we were waiting for them to tell us we could take him home. We got to watch our nurse Michelle give him a bath. She gave us some good tips. We couldn't believe how fast she got it done! She had obviously done it a few times before. One thing that was really great about Landen's NICU stay was that we got so many tips and training from the nurses.
Thursday
He's in a crib!! And wearing clothes!! (Their shirts were one size fits all so he was swimming in it.)
First feeding with Daddy
Look at how huge John's hand looks compared to Landen's head.
Stretchin' out in my new crib!
This is nice.
Friday
Set up for the pneumogram. Lots of extra wires and sensors.
Looked like he had a mustache.
Saturday
Sleepin'
Sunday
John's doing a diaper change. Turned out to be a doozy!
Look at this mess!! Landen kept pooping while John was changing him. I think he pee'd once too!
Landen's a pro at feeding.
Still hooked up to lots of monitors. Can't wait to be rid of those.
Monday
Showing off my hat from the March of Dimes volunteer. So cute!
Look! My pathway is almost complete!
Dreaming of going home.
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