12th Day in the NICU Part 2

We had a really nice day, visiting with Drayke at the hospital and then off to Katie's 8th birthday celebration. The doctors felt he was doing so good off the occilator that they increased his feedings from 1cc every 12 hours to 3cc's every 3 hours. This, it appears, was just too much for our little one. His O2 levels dropped and they ended up putting him back on the occilator. They were going to completely suspend his feedings but are now to just 1 cc every 6 hours which he is tolerating well.

4th Day at the NICU

Thursday was an incredibly hard day. Talked to the neonatologist in the morning and went over a possible complication that we may have but we wont know more until next week. Mom held it together for about 2 minutes then she completely lost it for the rest of the day. I ended up going back down to Lewisburg later in the day so I could de-stress in my own way and Liz called off of work to stay with me for the night.Turns out there were 8 births on the high risk floor that day alone and they ended up closing the NICU for several hours while they were getting all the new arrivals in. Liz and Mom finally were able to get in around 9:45PM and she was so glad they did. They approached Drayke's bed and his nurse said "you're in time! You can help me change his diaper and take his temperature!" Mom was bouncing off the walls because so was so ecstatic. OMG! She finally gets to really touch her son! She got to pull his little arm up and tuck the thermometer into his armpit. She told him "sweety, we need to get you fattend up because I have had chicken wings that have more meat on them". She just kept looking across his bed at Liz with happy tears flowing. Then trying to figure out how to lift him to change his diaper was a challenge. Being so small she was not sure as to how to handle him. The nurse told her to just take his legs and pull him up just like a full term baby and tuck the clean diaper under his dirty one. Then they started to pull off his dirty diaper and all of the sudden he peed a good foot across his bed towards Liz. They laughed hysterically at this, not expecting him to have THAT kind of reach with his stream. She got to clean his boy bits and finished putting the diaper on him. She has never been so happy to change a diaper in her life! As they walked out she was all "YES! Gods I needed that! My boy is doing so good" She slept VERY well Thursday night.

2nd Day in the NICU

My son is now on an occilator to increase his O2 levels. Even though he cried at birth they discovered after an Xray that his lungs are very tiny and not quite developed enough. It is so hard just standing there and not being able to touch him today. They are wanting him to relax and not get over stimulated so his body can concentrate on healing itself. All I want to do is hold my son and I cant because he is so small. Some good news out of the bad is because of his low birth weight he automatically is prequalified for SSI and the Tennessee version of Medicaid. We also now have his unofficial birth certificate so we can get him registered with WIC and his social security card has been requested.The official spelling of his name is Drayke Alan Crom. The NeoNatologist told us today the first 72 hours are the hardest and he is still such a strong little boy. He moves all the time and mom actually got to see him pee while he was baking under the phototherapy lights (used for jaundice).