13 lbs 13 ozs

Henry has been the same weight for three days now: 13 lbs 13 ozs.

On Wednesday, Grandpa Kenski came in the morning and stayed until 4PM. My mom came around 4PM to switch places, but as she came in the door, she felt congested. Turned around and went home. Basically, if anyone has even a slight suspicion of being sick, they unfortunately have to stay away. This is most unfortunate, because Jeff's dad arrived on Wednesday and alerted Jeff ahead of time that he had a small cold. Jeff picked him up at the airport and drove him to Green Valley, where Jeff's aunts and uncles live. We had hoped that the cold would pass after a day or so and that Joe would then come back to Tucson to stay with us, but his cold has gotten worse. Needless to say, everyone is disappointed in the situation. We hope things will improve in a rapid fashion.

I've discussed RSV before on this blog, but I know that it is still hard for people to understand why we have to live in relative isolation until Henry's two years old, especially during RSV season (November through April). Preemie parents are often accused being "overprotective" or "living in a bubble." Preemie lungs, especially those of children with CLD (chronic lung disease) or BPD (bronchopulmonary dysplasia), are simple underdeveloped even for the children's adjusted age. The lungs don't contain as much tissue AND the passageways are more narrow than those of the full-term babies. To illustrate the difference, one doctor's depiction of the difference between preemie and full-term lungs can be found at: http://www.preemiecare.org/LungsTrees03-4.pdf

Simply put, if the lungs get clogged, the situation can be deadly.

Henry experienced a night terror on Wednesday evening. He had dosed off while I was holding him. He started to scream and cry. Jeff tried to wake Henry up, but he wouldn't wake up for about 10 minutes. Jeff softly called out his name, but no luck. He just cried and cried. We tried to soothe him, but nothing seemed to calm him down. I'm pretty sure that the episode falls under the category "night terror" as opposed to "nightmare," because you can wake up easily from a nightmare. With night terrors, your body doesn't to outside stimuli the same way. At one point during the episode, Henry did have his eyes open, but he was clearly still asleep. I guess he'd done this a few days earlier when my mom was over. Hope these night terrors are few and far between.

On Thursday, my dad visited in the morning, and then returned in the evening to watch a Redskins football game with Henry. I received a call from Dr. Brown in the evening. He said that we can officially take Henry off the oxygen. He received the report from Dependable on the overnight pulse-ox study. Basically, off oxygen, Henry's oxygen saturation levels ranged between 94 and 100 percent. They were high most of the time. He said that they fell below 90 percent only 0.8% of the time. We actually never put Henry back on the oxygen after the overnight study, because we were monitoring the pulse-ox ourselves and knew that his saturation levels were high. Even when he was sleeping, I often saw the numbers between 97 and 100 percent. Nevertheless, it was nice to get the "official" word on the oxygen. We have to take Henry to see the doctor to get weighed in a couple weeks. The doctor wants to make sure that Henry is still able to gain weight while being off the oxygen. Henry's last three days haven't shown any increase, but before getting too concerned, it is important to recognize that: (1) he sometimes goes through plateau periods and then jumps up a couple ounces at one time, and (2) we had actually been a bit more restrained in our amount of fortification of as late, because we thought that a couple of "pure" breastmilk bottles a day might be good for his digestive system. We have to take Henry into Dr. Bianchi's to get one of his shots in a couple weeks; we'll get him weighed at that time and call the weight into Dr. Brown's office.

Either Wednesday or Thursday, the woman from Dependable who had done the analysis on the overnight study called to answer a question that Jeff had asked her about payment for the study. She said not to worry about it. I asked her if that meant that Dependable was taking care of it OR if the insurance company was paying it this time. She said that David at Dependable said that they'd take care of it. What a nice company. Nonetheless, I told her (as Jeff had the other day) that we are willing to fight the insurance company on it if Dependable would like. It is truly the insurance company's responsibility. It was, after all, a test ordered by Henry's doctor. It is rather ironic that Dependable makes money from my son being on oxygen, and yet it is also the company that has helped him get off it safely.

We gave Henry a bath before Grandpa Kenski came over on Thursday. Henry had a lot of fun in the bath tub. We put him in a Christmas outfit and tried to take pictures of him for a potential Christmas card. As soon as the camera came out, Henry put his smile away and gave us the most disinterested and bored expressions that he could possibly give us. As soon as the camera was turned off, he was all smiles. I pulled out the camera again. Henry decided to look bored again. Then, I gave up. Somehow, we'll have to find a way to trick him into smiling when the camera is on.

Last night, Henry had his longest stretch of sleep yet...from 10:30-11PM to 5AM or so. I can't remember if it was last night or the night before, but Henry managed to move to the side of the crib, and the monitor couldn't pick up his breathing, so it went off. Luckily, he was just fine.

Today, my dad came in the morning. Henry was rather fussy this afternoon. On our walk, we ran into our neighbors Janice and Linda, who commented on how big he is getting. Henry was chit chatty on the walk. He does like the sound of his own voice. He was kind of moody this evening. I don't think that he napped enough in the morning or afternoon. He gets rather cranky when he doesn't sleep (me too!). Henry finally got sleepy around 9:30PM or so. We put him to bed around 10:30PM. While he was asleep, I put my hair on his head, so that we could see what he looked like with hair. I suspect that it didn't quite capture what he'll look like.

In other news, we are working on Henry's tummy time each day, but he is back to hating it, so it isn't fun for anyone. The big thing that we've noticed this week is that Henry is really trying to sit up. He uses his abs to pull himself forward. That said, he doesn't have the strength or balance to hold himself upright for long. But he is trying...and getting kind of mad that his body doesn't do what he wants it to do.