From Pale to Pink

Jeff visited Henry yesterday afternoon (6/16). Joyce was still on duty. Henry's blood gases looked good, especially his CO2, which looked almost normal, but his hematocrit levels were low again, so he received yet another blood transfusion. Grandma and Aunt Carolyn visited Henry. Aunt Carolyn brought him a present--an orange tiger beanie baby named Sandals. Henry stared at his new friend Sandals.

In the evening, Jeff and I arrived while Kathy was still on duty. She had given him part two of his blood transfusion. They give the blood transfusions in pieces, so as not to overwhelm the babies' systems. The blood transfusions make Henry's color very pink. He continued to look puffy, especially around the neck. His left leg was still a little larger than his right side, but at least the redness around the thigh was beginning to fade compared to yesterday's color. Kathy weighed him at 1,040 grams.

Jeff and I changed his diaper. My new hobby is trying to guess how much it weighs before the nurse weighs it. Jeff guessed 9 grams, I guessed 4 grams, and Holly guessed 3 grams. Jeff won. It was 7 grams. That's good because he hadn't had any Lasix yesterday, and 7 grams is about where it should be.

Holly checked his heart and bowel sounds. Everything sounded good. She also checked for aspirates in the tummy. She got about 1 cc of green tinged clear stuff out of it.

The recliner was taken by one of the nurses into the isolation room. I really wish that people wouldn't take the recliner unless they actually need to recline in it. There are plenty of other chairs that don't recline that one could sit in. There's only one recliner in the NICU. We need the recliner for skin-to-skin because we need Henry to be at an angle. I was told by one of the nurses that the upright position wasn't good for his lungs yet. It would put too much strain on them. Moreover, when we do skin-to-skin, I like doing it for a long time (e.g., over an hour and a half); the reclined position makes this possible. I really feel like the skin-to-skin is medically beneficial to Henry. His sats tend to stabilize when he does it. Holly negotiated a trade with the nurse in the isolation chamber. She gave them a different chair in exchange for the recliner plus putting in an IV into the baby in the isolation chamber. Holly is great. She got the recliner and wiped it down with a disinfectant wipe for us. I kangarooed with Henry for over two hours. Holly noted that Henry had been the only baby in the room who didn't have alarms going off...further evidence, albeit anecdotal, that the skin-to-skin is medically beneficial. It was really late by this point. We left around 3:15AM.

I called the NICU this morning. Mary is taking care of Henry today. He continued to have some dark aspirates, so she is going to flush out his stomach with some saline, which should hopefully get rid of whatever is irritating his stomach. Jeff has headed down to the NICU for his Father's Day visit.