Synopsis of Days 1-5

Days 1-5 I hope you all don't mind, but instead of trying to remember what happened on each day I'll kind of give a synopsis of how everything has gone thus far and then I hope to get updates and pictures on here daily so that we can be asking for specific prayer requests and we all can see how God has and will continue to answer our prayers as our little peanut begins to grow and grow. We look forward to the day we get to bring him home! So after the delivery Nicholas was crying nice and loud. That just brought tears to my eyes knowing that he must have pretty well developed lungs if he could cry like that. I got to see him for just a short period of time before they took him off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Daddy went with Nicholas and was able to spend a good deal of time in the NICU with him as they checked him over and got him hooked up to different machines and such. Dr. Trottier finished up the C-section and I went into the recovery room. I felt ten times better than the last time I went into the recovery room after having Madison. For those that don’t know that story, I’ll try to blog about that at a later time. Once I was done in recovery which was around 7:30am they wheeled me down to my room and David was with me by then. Dave said the NICU nurses thought we should get to see Nicholas around 7:30am. Hours went by and we were still waiting for them to let us go down and see him. I think David was even more worried than I was. We asked the nurses if everything was okay and they said they had to put a venous and arterial central line in through his umbilical cord and that takes a good deal of time. It had to be a sterile environment and no one could be in there. We waited and waited and finally around 10:30am they said we could go down and see him. He was on a CPAP to help him breathe because the lungs were still quite immature. This was the 2nd of three stages of breathing assistance. The most critical is a breathing tube down the throat. The nurses said he didn’t necessarily need the CPAP, but he was kind of borderline between the CPAP and just the nasal canella so they were doing it as a precaution. By 8pm they had taken Nicholas off the CPAP and put him on the nasal canella. A huge step in the right direction! We were so happy and just knew that all the prayers were helping him to make positive strides to breathing on his own. The doctors and nurses were amazed by his progress. The hardest part at this point was not being able to hold him or even stroke his skin or hair. On Day 2, Nicholas’s arterial line was also removed which meant he was down to just the venous line and the nasal canula. This also meant that he could be moved to an isolette where he could begin moving towards doing everything on his own. We then found out that we would be able to possibly hold him by the end of the day. That’s amazing news because most people don’t get to hold their babies for a week or more when they are this early. The proud big sister, Madison, was able to go and visit Nicholas too. He opened his eyes for the first time when he heard her voice. She held her hands out and said “I hold him”. She wanted to just carefully hold him and take care of him. She was so sad when she heard we couldn’t hold you and that the doctors and nurses were fixing his owies right now. She was okay with that. She had a look of worry, but wonder on her face at who he was and how he was doing. It was one of the most memorable moments of the first few days of Nicholas’s life. One of the nurses also came up to us this day and said that he tried turning himself over by pushing up on one of his arms and legs and turning his head. She just had this look of amazement on her face because most babies in the NICU can’t do anything like that. He IS a MIRACLE!! My sister, better known to our children as Aunt Ree Ree came to visit. We got to see them give Nicholas his first bath and also do his footprints. That was really special for both of us to see. After his bath I was able to hold my baby for the first time. What a special moment. He was swaddled so tightly and seemed so content finally being in his momma’s arms. At one point during this few days Nicholas took a few steps back when he couldn’t keep his heart rate steady and it was staying up in the 170s and 180s. They did some blood tests and found that his carbon dioxide levels were raised and his bilirubin was high. So they put him back on the nasal canella and under the bili-light with a blindfold on. The bili-light was on for about 48 hours and the nasal canella was on for about 24 hours before all was better. Nicholas is now breathing on his own and even smiling on his own. He is so very smiley and a mom and dad couldn’t be more content knowing that he is comfortable and happy. Sometimes he smiles so big you almost think he’s going to giggle. We are able to hold him through all of his feedings for no more than 30 minutes at a time. He still has trouble maintaining a good body temperature so he will remain in the isolette until he can do this on his own and also establishes breastfeeding. Once he is able to tolerate all of his feedings whether through the tube in his nose or by breastfeeding then they will be able to take the venous line out of his belly button and take him off some of the wires and feeding tubes. Then he will be put in an open-air bed. Mom and Nicholas have been given the okay to attempt breastfeeding up to three times a day now so we are working on this while also working with an occupational therapist (OT) learning different ways we can touch, hold, move, and handle you. There are a number of things that are completely different with a premature baby and mom is taking all the time possible to learn everything she needs to know. Well, that should pretty much sum up what we’ve been up to over the last 5 or 6 days. Tomorrow is a brand new day and I look forward to the signs and miracles God has in store for all of us, especially our little Nicholas.