Day 8 in the NICU

Lincoln gained another almost 2 ounces today which puts him back up to 6 lb 14 oz!  He came off the timed pump feedings and was able to start off every meal with the bottle and then they would put the rest down the feeding tube with gravity.  He seemed to tolerate it well.

We tried to breastfeed 3 times today and we made it about 5 minutes in the longest attempt.  They keep reassuring me this is normal and keep practicing.  The lactation specialist came in to help me and had no suggestions to improve on my part, it was just a matter of him catching on.

He has remained in an open crib and kept him temperature up.  He spit up on his snugly blanket this morning and they had no clean linens so they found some preemie outfits they put on him and it was hilarious to me because he was so big they couldn't button them around his legs and so she made it look like a night gown which only went to his knees.  It made my day to have something to laugh about.

He had a great nurse too which also helps make the day a lot more pleasant!

Day 7 in the NICU

Huge milestones today!  Lincoln came completely off respiratory support and bilirubin lights!  He looked so great when we went in at 8:30 to snuggle him.  So glad his oxygen is out and he doesn't have to worry about the tubes up his nose anymore.

Today is his last day of antibiotic and his IV comes out at midnight!  Hooray for one less cord hooked to our boy!

He gained about 2 ounces and didn't spit in the last 24 hours.  They are going to slowly decrease his feeding times to stretch his tummy.  So far 75 minutes is working.  He tried to nurse again today and made it about 3 minutes.  Sounds like this may be a slow process.  He's just so sleepy!

time.

He got to have his first bath today and thought it was heaven sent.  He relaxed the whole time.

He is weaning to an open crib and so far keeping his temperature.  Hopefully this will continue.

So relieved to be making progress!  Hopefully only a couple more days and baby boy Lincoln can come home.

Day 6 in NICU

This morning when I went in Lincoln was still under lights.  His billiruben went down one level, but they anticipated it peaking so they decided to keep him on the low intensity lights one more day.

He had spit a lot of his feedings up with almost every attempt so they increased his feeding time with the pump from 60 to 90 minutes and lowered his amount of food to 62 vs 68ml.  He seemed to feel better with that change.  He gained a half ounce from yesterday.  Feeding may be our new hurdle.

They also took him off the CPAP machine and put him on a nasal therm which was a level 3 vs 6 pressure in the lungs.  He reacted really well with it and they decreased it to 2 within the first hour.  So far he has maintained his oxygen in the 90%.  This should also help with the bubbles in his tummy and spitting.  I also got excited because they promised at level 2 he would start attempting to eat with a bottle or breast feed.

We tried to breast feed tonight but he was way too drowsy.  He made it about 30 seconds.  Better luck tomorrow I guess.  :)

Day 5 in NICU

Every morning at 10am a group of specialists visit your baby's bedside and discuss any changes and the plan for the day.  I have made sure I was there by 8:30am to do his diaper change and hold him while he is fed until the doctors come around with any news.  It has been beneficial to be there early too because then I tend to get to hear the updates as they are observing before 10am. :)  So this morning as they were doing rounds I heard them say Lincoln was on day 5 of 7 of the antibiotic.  He had taken it the first 2 days and then stopped one day because the test came back negative but then continued it.  I was anticipating this to be starting over day 2 of 7 so I got excited to hear he was further along with his antibiotic than I thought.

He had gained 2 oz over the day and weighed 6lb 11oz.  He was spitty so they put his food in a pump to give it to him over the course of 30 and then 60 minutes to see if that would help.  It didn't seem to make too much of a difference.

He was on 25-30% oxygen and his Cpap machine had moved from 8 to 6.  

Still on lights for the jaundice but it was low intensity because his levels had improved almost 2 points.

The girls got to meet Lincoln tonight on Facetime.  It made my heart so happy for them to be giggling as they watched his little face and hands and feet.  Dustin showed them his bed and lights and all the other jazz he has in his little room.  We can't wait for them to get to hold him and meet him for reals.

Day 4 in the NICU

Starting last night they had decided to continue his antibiotic.  We were confused why they were able to find some infection when the first blood culture came back negative.  They suggested that because I hadn't had the group B strep test given at 36 weeks at the OBGYN they gave me 3 doses of penicillin through my IV during labor and because his blood draw was only about 1 hour after birth that penicillin was in his blood and masking whatever infection may have showed up.

They turned down his Cpap from 7 to 6 and he maintained 25-30% oxygen.  His breaths continued to slow down to about 50 per minute average.

His biliruben had gone down so he got to be on a lower light setting.

He officially lost all the weight they needed him to shed, down to 6 lb 9 oz.  He looks a lot better with all the swelling and extra water off him.  They always comment that he is so big cause he is big for NICU but still so tiny!  They took the IV out because it was unnecessary to run 2 at this point.  Just needed 1 for antibiotic.

They have continued to increase his feeding amounts and he will be up to his full 68ml per feeding by the end of today.  He will still be receiving fluid through his feeding tube.  Makes me wonder if he will be hard to nurse because he is used to instant gratification of food in his tummy when he gets hungry.  He always roots on me when I hold him and chomps pretty hard on his binki so those are both good signs.

This morning when I went in and was holding him the nurse was trying to tape the syringe with milk up to my chair and spilled a whole 60ml of breast milk on the floor.  I felt like bawling.  So much harder to replace 2 oz of breast milk than formula!  He digests and holds the formula so much better too so it made me pretty sad.

Dustin got to change his first diaper. :)

Lincoln barfed pretty good on him while he was holding him tonight.  We only got to hold for about 30 minutes.  The nurse seemed to be fumbling a lot so we felt super uneasy that night.  Just praying for both Lincoln and the nurse. :)

Such a sweet little buddy!!

Emotions are so high.  Our family is so incomplete without this little guy home.  When Dustin came home for dinner tonight he just put his face in his hands and cried.  I told him to go to the bedroom so he didnt get the girls upset.  It's so tough to be strong for them.  Once he left I text our good friend Mike Hansen to come over and give him a blessing.  Within minutes good Mike and his father in law were at our doorstep.  Dustin was surprised and thankful.

 We were reminded that the Lord is very mindful of us and of Lincoln and family from the other side of the veil is standing by Lincoln when we cannot be there.  We are so blessed to have the gospel and just need to increase our faith.  He WILL come home.  We just need to turn it over to the Lord.

Day 1 -3 in NICU

When I went to record these days the first three are a bit cluttered together so here is my best attempt at documenting the first 3 days.  Not sure what steps were taken on which days for sure but it all happened between day 1 & 3.  :)

We went to see baby Lincoln in the morning and they let us hold him and encouraged me to hold him skin to skin so I put him in my garment top and snuggled him.  He seemed to like it and relaxed me too.  

At this point they had determined he had fluid on his lungs.  There is a fluid that all babies have inside the womb because they are not breathing that is supposed to be absorbed by the body when the mom is laboring.  When they cut the cord it should be instantaneous that the fluid is absorbed.  This was not the case for baby Lincoln.  

They were also checking him for an infection.  They had taken the blood test yesterday and were doing a 48 hour culture.  They started an IV in his hand so the antibiotic could start.  He was also getting his nutrition through the IV which was a little bit of protein.  

He had a feeding tube because he was breathing so quickly if he tried to suck at the same time he would aspirate causing even more problems.  However, he wasn't getting any food at this point.  The same tube acted as a burp so any air that was in his tummy would come out of it.  

He was on 28% oxygen which was only 7% more than room oxygen so it wasn't too concerning. He was also on a type of respirator forcing his lungs open so hopefully all the liquid that had retained could go out and be absorbed.

He was also on a Cpap (respirator) forcing air to keep his lungs open.  It was at a level 7 I believe.

We both slept a lot that day, trying to catch up from the previous few days of traumatic stress.

Day #2 - When I walked down to the NICU I felt like jumping for joy.  His little feeding tube was out and his IV was out.  However, they quickly informed me he had ripped his feeding tube out so it was about to be replaced.  And his IVs were just irritated so they were about to put a new one in.  

We found out he was negative for infection so they determined the IV was unnecessary at this point.  He had lost some weight through the night which they were very happy about because his swelling was going down and he was getting rid of some of the retaining fluids. 

He was getting a little jaundice so they put him on a billi blanket which just fit right inside his little blanket and was all lit up breaking down the biliruben in his body.

His chest Xray was the same.  We were in great spirits because he looked so good and we got to hold him again. 

Dustin's first time holding him.  He told him what a ladies man and stud muffin he was and how they were going to go hunting and hiking and fishing and everything else he could possibly think of.  Little Lincoln's eyes were just flying back and forth as he listened to his dad.  It was pretty sweet.  He even gave a couple smiles.

I had to check out of the hospital that day and felt ok about it.

When we went back that night his oxygen was 100% and Cpap turned up to 8.  They said all his stats dropped when we put him down that morning and he had a really rough day.  They wanted to give him more oxygen and air to relax his body and hopefully open the airways to push that fluid out.  They also started him on a diaretic to flush the fluids out of him so he had another IV in his arm.  My heart hurt.

Pictures from day #3

Baby Lincoln Arrives

Saturday night about 11:00pm we checked in to EIRMC hospital.  Apparently I was 1 of about 6 women that checked in the same night so I took their last available delivery room.  They immediately checked to see if my water had broke which took about 20 minutes and of course it had.   It's extremely uncomfortable laying on the bed letting fluid run right out of you. Makes you feel like you are peeing all over their stuff. 

They also checked for dilation and I was 1-2cm by that point.   I was having some minor contractions but nothing to make me terribly uncomfortable however they were not going to start me on pitosin until morning to allow the doctor to sleep.  I was unable to get any sleep all night.  They gave me a narcotic that made me fully relax in between contractions which were about every 10 minutes and that lasted about an hour.  I hated it and requested not to have it again.  It made my eyes spinny and I felt drugged.

By early morning probably 5am I started to have some really hard contractions until I was dilated to about a 5 which at that point I was begging for an epidural.  The contractions were about every 3-4 minutes and were intense enough to bring me to tears.  Thankfully the epidural came pretty quick and was working within 15 minutes.  They didn't need to give me any pitosin and before long I was ready to push. 

Mom came about 5 minutes before the doctor to take some photos for us.

Dr. Allphin showed up to deliver the baby and I reminded him that we had discussed Dustin helping him "catch" the baby.  He was excited and helped Dustin gown up and get ready.

I'm pretty sure Dustin was feeling a slight bit anxious at this point. :)  Dr. Allphin gave him a quick 1 line instruction and was ready to go.  I could tell by the look on Dustin's face he was quite dissatisfied with the lack of instruction so I told Dr. Allphin, "My husband is an Engineer, he's going to need a LOT more specific instructions than that."  So he started talking degrees and angles and the party started. :)  ha

Then they watched as I pushed...

Ready, set go! 

And here he is!  Hardly making any sounds.

I got to get a quick glimpse of my beautiful purple baby.

Dustin got to cut the cord. 

He didn't know if he should laugh or cry. 

They cleaned him up and weighed him. 

7 lbs. 4 oz and 20 3/4" long!  Not bad for coming 4 weeks early. 

Poor little man was so swollen. 

And off he went with the NICU nurses for his adventure in the place 

he would call home for at least 12 hours. 

I fell asleep in the delivery room and then after a short while they cleaned me up and took me to my room.  I was able to be wheeled into the NICU to see my baby boy.  He is beautiful!  Sadly I was only able to touch him, no stroking, holding or feeding.  They encouraged us to give him as little stimulation as possible that whole day.  

We decided after seeing him he would be named Lincoln David Braithwaite.  Named after Dustin's dad and a relative we have never met from New Family Search. :)

That evening mom and dad brought the girls up to give me hugs and dad and Dustin gave him a blessing using only their fingers through the incubator holes.  It gave me a lot of comfort to watch the Priesthood be administered to our baby boy.  So thankful for the good example his daddy and grandpa will be for him throughout his life.  And so the adventure begins - prayers and more prayers is all we could do.