Emily update #4

Update on Tobias

It is so crazy that he is officially 2 weeks old today. He has gained a little bit of weight. He is up to 1 pound 12.1 ounces. They have him on a slow continuous feed in hopes that he will keep most of it down and stop spitting it up. We did have the biggest scare last week when he spat up and it got caught in his breathing tube. His oxygen quickly started dropping and his heart rate dropped too. A lot of doctors and nurses came running in and had to completely replace his tube. We were so scared that something serious would happen to him. Thankfully he recovered from it all very quickly. It just makes me very scared now any time he spits up. In order to get him to gain weight they have added some cream and another additive to his milk to give him more calories. He is up to getting 30 calories now. They took him off his fentanyl, which he was not a fan of coming off that. Monday he was very cranky all day coming off from it and would not sleep. So they put him on morphine and they will slowly decrease the type of pain medication that he is on. He loves using his hands to grab a hold of anything that he can get his hands on. It’s got him in trouble a few times as he has pulled out his tubes. The nurses will either put a seatbelt or the bean bag on his arms to keep him down. He doesn’t like it when I tell on him about his arms being out. He did great with his head ultrasound and it came back completely normal. His heart ultrasound came back that a blood vessel that normally closes off after birth was still there. They are going to relook at it again this Friday and if it comes back that it’s still there then they will use mediations to close it. His CO2 levels are back to normal and the ventilator is a constant adjustment. They may have to switch out his oxygen tube soon because it’s getting too small for him. You normally aren’t supposed to hear babies cry on the ventilator and they are starting to hear him when they are listening to his lungs. That’s cause there is a small gap with where the tube is and why he would need a bigger one. It also means he’s getting a little bit bigger. We did get some great news this week. Starting December 1st they are going to be trying out something new and let parents hold their babies on the ventilator. I’m so excited to be able to hold him for the first time. Nolan has asked me if I’m going to share Tobias with him and we’ll see if I will let him. I also got to change his diaper for the first time today. It’s definitely not as easy on such a little baby because I was so scared I would hurt him. Nolan told me since I changed the first one that means he gets out of changing any diapers. We’ll see about that one.