Miles had a great night… they took the nasal cannula out and he is breathing on his own!!! His respirations went up slightly after they took it out, but they said as long as he doesnt look like he is laboring for a breath, such as flaring his nostrils or having the muscles in his rib cage show, they will leave it out. The IV in his scalp blew again last night, so now he has one in his foot. Because he seems to be going through IVs every 8 hours or so, they have decided to discontinue his IV fluids in an effort to save this last IV site for the antibiotics he is getting. He is on day 9 of 10 days of antibiotics, so as soon as he is done with them, they will pull all IVs and hope that he wont need another one to give his veins a rest. He will be much happier without all those tubes! He is 2 ounces shy of his birth weight and is gaining every day. They have increased the amount of breastmilk he is getting every three hours to an ounce and a quarter. We are also continuing to try and breastfeed him, but he just seems too tired to try for very long. He is slowly getting better at it though. Today he latched on and sucked for about 30 seconds… a record so far.
We also put some clothes on him today and he looks so darn cute. He is so long though that although the preemie size is really big around his waist, his arms and legs fill it out completely! What a big boy:) He wont be in preemie size for long at the rate he is going. His temperature is also taken every hour and all day today he was very warm, so my nurse mentioned they might move him from his isolette into an open air crib and see if he can still keep warm.
Speaking of still keeping warm, that is one of the criteria he has to pass in order to come home. He has to be in an open air crib and keep himself warm for a few days. He has to be off all medications and all fluids. He has to be taking all his nutrition from the breast or bottle and has to still gain weight. He has to be “episode” free for 7 days. An “episode” is what they call it when a baby has an apnea or a bradycardia, or forget to breathe and have a rapid loss of heartbeats. So, Miles is well on his way to meeting all of these criteria. He is such a fighter, and has made such leaps and bounds these last couple days. Mike was not able to get up to the hospital for the last two days because he has been on Nolan duty, but today he got up there and couldn’t believe how different and how healthy he looked compared to 10 days ago. His biggest hurdle right now is figuring out this breastfeeding thing. He gets better every day, but they warned me he may hit a plateau because we are asking him to do so much already that he really wasn’t supposed to do for 7 more weeks at this point. I am proud of him and am enjoying watching him grow every day.
For more pics, checkout Mike’s Page
