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
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