1 MONTH :) 2 LBs. 6 oz.

Noah is one month old today!!! His life is full of a never ending stream of challenges but he handles them very well. Yesterday morning he went back on the ventilator (tube directly into his lungs). He was getting very tired and having quite a few episodes. His doctor also put him on a course of antibiotics, just to be safe, and ran a CBC. Preliminary results are good as there is no news yet (no growth on his culture), his nurse says "no news is good news". As long as he doesn't have any signs of infection he will be off the antibiotics after 48 hours. His lung X-ray came back good and his lungs, heart, and digestive system sound good. I think he just got pooped out.

I have also gotten pooped out and come down with a cold. Unfortunately this means no more holding and snuggling until I am well. I can still visit, with a mask on of course. In the mean time I don't stay that long and I don't handle him or his incubator. It's better than not seeing him at all. I am taking good care of myself and drinking massive amounts of water so I will be better ASAP and it seems to be working at the moment... The cold feels mild.

Noah is one month old today!!!! Happy 1month B-day tiny little man :) we all love you!!

Jennifer

Busy Day....

Noah had lots of company today! Grandma Langley, Aunt Lori, and Aunt Brenda came to the hospital with mommy. We had a wonderful visit! Noah is 2 lb. 3 oz. and still cute as a button. His feedings are up to 7.5 ml an hour. I got to hold him in the fashion know as kangarooing. It was very nice to snuggle with him, the skin on skin contact is supposed to be very beneficial for both of us. He is still having little episodes of apnea. It is pretty common for preemies of his size and I am getting used to it. It would be nice if he would remember to breath all of the time though! Keep up the prayers, they are helping him grow!

Jennifer

2 lb. 1.6 oz.

Noah continues to gain weight little by little. We have our fingers crossed that he will continue along this path. We had a good visit today. Michael and I spent a couple hours cooing over him and I got to hold him for about 20 minutes. It is wonderful to finally snuggle my little guy. We didn't have our camera with us and ended up using the disposable camera I left in Noah's dresser. It is new so it will be a while before the photos get developed. What ever did we do before the instant gratification of digital photos and the internet??
We continue to pray for Noah to be strong and grow and we appreciate all of the prayers offered by friends and family.
Thank you for stopping in to check on him, it means the world to us!

Jennifer

Noah's New Bed

It is beautifully sunny in our part of Michigan Today!! The sunlight feels great :)
I was at the hospital by 12:30 this afternoon in order to give Noah his bath. It was a pretty important bath as it is the first one I have given him. It is a little different giving a bath to 2 lb. preemie. I washed his face and head first and then dried them before moving on so he wouldn't get a chill. His bath is not in a tub yet. He gets them on a pee pad (small sheet absorbent on one side and plastic on the other). After the bath and re-diapering I cleaned out his nose and mouth. This is when things got interesting! I put his c-pap back in his nose and got the head band adjusted and then prepared Noah to come out of his bed. It was "new bed" day for him; he gets a new clean isolett every 2 weeks. Nurse Sue had me hold him while she switched out his bed. This is the first time I have held him since right after he was born. It was a sweet moment for both of us! It was also a little tricky as Noah was dangling a few wires and his c-pap did not want to stay in place. He did wonderfully well during both the bath and the bed change. When his wires were reconnected to the monitors his numbers were all fantastic. Once he was comfortably drifting off to sleep I snuck out so he could rest. It doesn't take much to tire out someone so small.

If you noticed I did say 2 lbs! Whoo Hoo..........

It is a beautiful day ; )

Jennifer

Tuesday Feb. 19th, 2008

Noah spent 4 hours today off of the c-pap. I managed to snap a couple of pictures while he had the regular oxygen tube. I don't often get a picture of his full face :) His doctor took him off the c-pap to rest his nose a little and see how he would do on the nasal cannula. He did a little better than I would have expected but still had enough episodes to be put back on the c-pap after 4 hours. He did however get a little more lung exercise, that is the point after all. Try, try again! That is the name of the game. I am guessing that his doctor will give it another shot by the beginning of next week.

Noah gained a tiny bit more weight last night. He is now 1 lb. 15.3 oz. or 900 grams. His feedings are 7 ml. an hour, 5 hours on, 1 hour off, around the clock. He continues to have good blood gases and his CBC from earlier in the week came back clean (no infections). When he is awake he likes to stare at mommy... I know I am just a big blur but he must like the sound of my voice as his eyes gravitate toward me every time he hears it. The warmth and the noise of the bells and beeps in NICU exhaust me, I don't know how he can stand it!

Jennifer

Noah on his C-pap

Here is a photo of Noah ,2-17-08, with the c-pap in his nose. I think he was actually posing for me ;) He must be grandma's boy!

Sunday's News

Noah is having a good day today. I am posting from his bed side :) He had some blood work this morning and the preliminary results are good (no infections). He was getting tired last night so his doctors decided to turn his breath rate back up a little, 20 breaths per minute, and wait another day or two to take him off the c-pap. I am very pleased about this decision, he looked tired to me last night and I was a little worried he needed a couple more days.

He gained a little more weight last night and is now up to 1lb. 15oz. I am hoping for a repeat performance tonight as he is so, so close to that 2lb. mark. I would love him to make it there.

He is getting another bath in about an hour, I am letting him catch some zzzz's first. Then I will be headed home. I have a few new photo's I will try to post tonight or tomorrow.

Jen :)

A Quick Update

Noah is still doing well on his C-pap. The doctors are thinking of taking him off of it tomorrow and putting him on regular oxygen (the regular nose tubes without the forceful push his c-pap gives). He is currently only getting 10 breaths a minute from the machine and the oxygen level is set near room oxygen. I am a little worried he will get tired but he is doing much better breathing on his own this time.

The only change we have experienced today is with his eyes. He started to have some drainage and his nurse did a culture. He is getting antibiotic drops now. Yick... It's always something! I think he likes to make sure we are all paying attention to him ;)

Love,
the mommy

Noah's Bath

Michael, Collin, and I watched Noah get a bath tonight :) He was cute, though he complained a little bit. His weight is up today and he is doing pretty good on the c-pap. I am proud of him, he is still on the short prongs and his blood gases are doing well. His feedings haven't changed in the last few days. Tomorrow they are going to start adding an Iron supplement to his food.

Nothing else has changed in the last couple of days.

I have never been a fan of Mondays!!

It seems wrong to dislike a day because it falls at the begining of the week, but dislike it I do. It's not a major dislike just an irritant. Truly I should embrace Monday for it's new begining but I cannot seem to find the desire.

Noah is doing just fine today. He and I have both had an active day; although we have not had the pleasure of spending it together. I am a little crabby :) because of this fact. Noah gained a few more grams during the night and continues to do well with his feedings. His blood gases have been good and once again he has had the tube removed from his lungs. His doctors have decided to take him back off of the ventilator and put him on the c-pap. He has the short prongs at the moment and I am hopeful he will do well on them. Last time they put him on the c-pap he ended up with the long prongs and I don't think he liked them very much as he kept wiggling around and pulling them out.

Nothing else has changed in the last day. His test results for this mornings ultrasound won't be back until tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing him in a few hours. Michael and I are planning a night visit today.

Keep up the prayers....

Jennifer

Noah week 2 (1lb 13oz.)

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. As you can imagine running back and forth to the hospital, keeping up with homework, and pumping baby food all the time has been keeping me very busy and is leaving me a little exhausted at the end of the day. I have managed to make up my homework and am in the last week of my current class. I expect to finish on time and maintain my grades, the faculty at Baker have been very helpful.

Noah has had a pretty busy week. His ultrasound showed a tiny bit of hemorrhaging under one of the ventricles in his brain, we have been told not to be concerned as this is semi-common. Our doctor rated Noah's bleeding on a scale of 0-5, 0 being no bleeding and 5 being bad. Noah is a 1. This condition is caused during birth and happens in about 50% of all vaginal deliveries. It occurs during the first 48 hours or so. The blood should dry up on its own but they will ultrasound him again on Monday to re-check his condition.

Noah also had his first blood transfusion this week. They did not remove any of his blood; rather, 13 ml was added. After the transfusion his IV was pulled from his belly button. He is now free of the two lines he was given in his belly button at birth. He is getting enough fluid from his feedings, and he now longer needs to have an IV. The other line was an arterial blood pressure monitor, they removed that early last week and are monitoring his blood pressure with a tiny arm cuff (only when it needs to be checked). Noah looks very cute with his tiny little belly button completely free of wires and tubes :)

A second echo was done on his heart late last week, his doctor wanted to re-check the size of the duct to see if it was closing. The cardiologist called the opening "Tiny", the first echo showed it as "small" so it is making progress closing. Noah's nurse will ask when and if another echo will be done during rounds this morning.

The last bit of news I have this morning is Noah's weight. We have been warned not to get too excited about his weight, as it will go up and down quite a bit over the course of his stay in NICU. This morning is a great morning for us anyways because Noah has finally come back up to his birth weight. He is 810 grams this morning, he gained a tiny 10 grams last night. This was just enough to push him up to 1lb. 13oz. and I can't help but be proud of him for this tiny accomplishment. His feedings are up to 6ml an hour and he gets fed 5 hour on, 1 hour off, around the clock. During 24 hours he is getting 120ml, roughly 4oz.

We visited with Noah rather late yesterday, normally I am there in the afternoon. It was after 8pm when we arrived and he was having his vitals checked by nurse Nanette. He was wide awake and responded very well to Michael and I. Nanette was pretty impressed and mentioned how wonderful he was to nurse Debbie this morning. The staff at St. Joseph NICU is wonderful. Every nurse we have worked with has been great. I cannot say enough good things about what they are doing and the compassion they show. Michael and I are going to take the camera up and start taking their pictures to post here. We want Noah to have a record of the kind and caring people that are taking care of him.

Jennifer

Day 10 for Noah

It has been a long and interesting weekend. I was a little tired and didn't get here to post new info. They say the week that starts following day 3 or 4 can be kind of tough and I understand why! We were given a lot of information from the doctor on day 2 relating to some of the issues Noah might go through because he is so early. Over the weekend we encountered a couple of these. The first is Noah's breathing. They took him off the ventilator last week, breathing on his own helps to build important muscle in his chest and lungs. Getting preemie's to breath on there own as soon as possible is pretty important. As was expected Noah started getting tired near the weekend. On Saturday his little nose was all sore and yucky from his tubes wiggling around and he was having too many incidents of poor breathing so they put the respirator tube back into his lungs for a little while so he could rest and recover. He looked as if he was feeling better right away and his blood gases have been getting better and better since the change.

On Sunday morning Noah had a slight murmur in his heart, this is also something we were told might happen. The murmur is caused by a tube in the heart that is open inutero and is supposed to close once a baby is born. In preemie's sometimes it doesn't close or it will close and open and close and open. Noah started getting medicine yesterday to close it. This morning nurse Jennifer said she did not hear the murmur, my fingers are crossed that it stays this way, I would hate to have to repeat the medicine again in a few weeks if it re-opens.

Noah's weight this morning is good at 1lb. 12 oz. he is almost back to birth weight. I was hoping he would start moving in that direction by day 14 so I am feeling pretty positive this morning. He had some blood work and an ultrasound this morning and we won't have those results back until tonight and sometime tomorrow. What is important for the next day or so is rest and growth. Feedings are still going really well. He is digesting mommy's milk very well and having poopy diapers every day. I believe he is getting 3ml a feeding but will double check this afternoon when I get to the hospital.

Jen

We love you Noah

From Aunt Lori