Some Enchanted Evening

Sorry, running out of catchy ideas for blog post titles.

Last night was a nice night. Nadine was his nurse. He was doing pretty well on his oxygen levels, 33% with sats in the 80's and 90's. He was doing a bit of surfing. His weight was down to 840 grams but that wasn't too unexpected given the diuretic he was given. I believe his feeds are still at 14ml. He had about 3ml of residual from the previous feed but that may have been due to him pushing it up his feeding tube into a syringe that they leave open to vent the gas from his stomach. That can happen when their tummies are full and they bear down.

I was able to do the skin to skin holding tonight. Gene had pulled the green recliner to the crib side before his shift ended so I wouldn't have to be so upright. Apparently holding him upright isn't good for his lungs. With the recliner I was able to lean back and have Henry lay on top of my chest in a very comfortable position.

We also got the ok to have him on the nasal canulla rather than the cpap while being held. This was great. It scares Kate a bit because she isn't convinced he is ready to breathe on his own and the canulla doesn't supply the pressure to his lungs, it only supplies oxygen. I feel like he can handle breathing on his own for a while and needs a break from the cpap which looks terribly painful. The cpap is also a major problem when trying to hold him because it has to be in just the right position.

Kate fed him while I lay there with Henry. He seemed to twitch quite a bit but his vitals stayed good. The only problem was that he got a bit too relaxed and would drop too low on his breathing rate. I would give him a little wiggle to remind him to breathe. It's not uncommon for this to happen after he is fed. I held him for about 40 minutes. I could have gone longer but they were getting a new arrival at the end of the pod and it was going to be getting noisy in there.

I'm going to add some new pictures to Kate's previous posts so please scroll on down.