lindsays blog

Day 3 – going home without Miles

Today was probably the hardest day I really have ever had.  I left the hospital without my son.  It is a bitter sweet reality that yes, he is in the best place he can be with the best care he can have.  But it is hard to think that they can’t talk to him and console him like I can, and what if he is upset?  Who will tell him it will all be ok?  It is the first of many tough days, but I am happy to be home to see my other son Nolan who seemed to have grown up in just 1 week!  He is making new faces and laughing differently and is starting to stand for short periods on his own!  How can one little guy grow so fast in a week:)  I missed him terribly and am so happy to be able to cuddle him right now – (even though he is way to busy to be cuddled!)

As for Miles, they declared him last night as having pneumonia with a touch of RSD.  His respiratory rate stayed high all night and they had to increase his oxygen level again to get him comfortable.  He still is not responding well to touch, his oxygen levels drop and his respirations increase, but today I spend a good portion of the day sitting by his bed and talking to him and after a while if I put a firm hand on his butt he settled down and drifted off to sleep.  Because of the pneumonia and him still needing the CPAP, he is still  not allowed to eat which also makes him cranky.  They heard a heart murmer on him this morning and explained to me that this is sometimes common because a fetus has a hole in the heart to shunt blood between the atriums without going to the ventricles because he does not need to perfuse his body with his blood, I was doing that for him when he was in the womb.  Close to a babys delivery that hole will shut and blood will be redirected throughout his body to supply his limbs.  They are suspicious that Miles’ never shut and now they are hearing turbulance through the hole, as well as a decrease in peripheral pulses.  If this is the case, it could close on its own or they may need to give him a medicine that will help it to close which takes 36 hours to give in which time he may not eat b/c the blood will be shunted away from his abdomen.  If this is not the cause of the murmer, a cardiac team will look at him and decide what the problem is.

In summary of the day, he is holding steady for now.  He is lying comfortably in his incubator, and I am lying comfortably in bed and we are both ready to face the night.