Dilated Pupils

Dear Samuel,

Today you had your very first Eye exam. It only consisted of dilating your pupils to make sure all of the blood vessels in your eyes are growing properly. You passed with flying colors. Everything looks normal for your gestational age.

The rest of the day consisted of you recovering from said eye exam. As you can imagine, for such a little guy it takes a lot out of you! Because of this you had quite a few alarms (mostly de-sats, but some ABD's) today.

The GOOD news is that your O2 levels were all the way down to 23% tonight! And how much is room air, again???? That's right. 21%.

There is some talk about switching your vent machine and your nose prongs, as well. The new machine would only supply you with what's called "high flow". It would NOT give you breaths like your current vent but rather supply you with a high flow of oxygenated air. I know, it sounds kind of like the same thing but they are different.

Other than that, not much change today. Mom is going to give you another bath tomorrow.

Sleep tight little one.

Love,
Mom and Dad

Party Time! (Excellent)

Dear Samuel,

Two! Pounds!

Unfortunately, the rest of the day wasn't so exciting.......

In the past few days you have had an increasing amount of de-sats. They chalked this up to the RSV at first, but now they aren't so sure. Today, the doctor ordered a blood transfusion, as your hemoglobin was low on your blood gas. They also drew some more blood for a culture to see if there may be another infection. It's not the fact that they think anything is wrong, but they just want to make sure they aren't missing something by believing the RSV is the cause of your issues. 

So, you have another IV in your arm again, but at the moment you don't have anything going through it. Just a precaution. 

You also have a little catheter in to try and get a urine sample. They want to see if there is any bacteria in your urine. Of course, you keep spoiling any sample because you happen to do a certain something else (It involves the number 2). So, as of yet, they have not been able to get a reading on this. 

When I was down to see you tonight, the nurse told me that all of the "initial" tests came back clean. The number they use to see inflammation/infection was low (which is good). 

Your O2 levels were around 30% for most of the day, but went as high as 40%. I'm hoping they won't have to take that level up because of all of the de-sats. The good thing is, that you seem to do really well at 30%....when you remember to breath. 

So, I guess all things considered it wasn't THAT bad of a day. One cool thing was that you were able to suck on a pacifier today. Momma gave you one today when you were getting your IV put in. This will come in handy later on ;) 

Hoping you can get some sleep tonight, buddy! 

Love, 

Mom and Dad