Life in the NICU

I am so thankful we live only 10 minutes from the NICU.   I am so thankful that he is doing so well and that we can hold him whenever we want, and can invite our friends to hold him as well.  I am so thankful for so many dear friends who give me rides to the hospital while Joel is at work.

I try to be in the NICU to hold him through at least two of his meal times a day.  Right now he is in a a NICU room where two nurses care for 4 to 5 babies at a time.  When ever I come to visit him I can do all the normal "mommy" things - change his clothes (provided from the NICU while he is there) and diaper, take his temperature, pick him up and hold him, and encourage him to start nursing during meal times while he is still being tube fed.  They provide recliners and chairs for visitors.  When I want to let him rest against my skin the nurses draw some curtains and set up a screen around us for privacy.  Often the lights are turned down low so that the babies rest easier, but that also puts me to sleep too!

The best estimate of when he will get to go home is around his due date, which is the expectation for most premature babies.  So far he continues to grow and behave just like the doctors expect for any baby born early at 35 weeks. 

 

He doesn't open his eyes too often yet, but he is getting more active everyday!

Here's a summary of his current situation:

• He is breathing room air with minimal "help" from a nasal cannula - it just provides a very small, steady stream of air to help him remember to breath, but he does very well without it too.
• He is digesting milk very well and they are gradually increasing his food volume every meal.
• He is maintaining his own body heat and now is in a "big boy" bed - a smaller "crib" instead of a hooded incubator
• The two echo cardiograms (heart scans) they have done since his birth have shown a thickening of the lower heart walls and three slightly "leaky" valves, but his heart is still functioning normally and well and his heart rate has remained consistent and strong.  He'll have another echo cardiogram before he is discharged, and then the doctors will decide how often to keep checking up on it.  We are hoping and praying that his heart will will heal or at least remain stable and not develop serious problems. 
• The ultrasound for his kidney confirmed that the left kidney did not develop normally and probably is not functioning.  The right kidney looks normal, and is functioning well (he fills his diapers!).  We will see a specialist at OHSU in Portland sometime soon after Oliver is discharged to learn more about how much, if at all, the left kidney is functioning and to see what may need to be done about it. 
• He will have an MRI on his brain just before he is discharged so see if that will tell us anything about the dilated ventricles and "webbing" in the ventricles that they saw in an ultrasound just after he was born.  Even if we don't learn anything new from the MRI we will be especially attentive to Oliver's development so we can be proactive about any special needs he may have. 
• An x-ray showed that his arms, legs, and overall structure is just the right size, and not particularly short like they thought based on the ultrasound, so he's little but just the right size for being born at 35 weeks!