Today, January 15th was my due date.
On October 15th I had to have an emergency c-section due to severe pre-eclampsia. When the doctors told me they had to take the baby out, one of them said we would probably hear the cry of a healthy, albeit small, little boy.
Unfortunately he was wrong about that. There was no cry. He was too little and his little lungs were just no where near where they needed to be.
Oliver James was born at 11:44am, 10/15/14. He was intubated within the first 15 minutes of life and was intubated pretty much the entire time since then until Dec 31. There were a few short periods when he was extubated but never more than a couple days.
He has chronic lung disease due to prematurity (also known as BPD, bronchopulmonary dysplasia).
If you have noticed a MAJOR slow down on the blog over the past 5-6 weeks, I just haven’t had the time or extra energy. At the beginning I somehow managed a bit through the holidays and then as time went on I think my brain hit a mental overload. You don’t realize or understand “life in the NICU” until you live it. It really is a whole different world.
I can’t make any promises about it picking up anytime soon yet, I am trying though!
Oliver has had a lot of ups and downs over the past three months. You can see my earlier blog posts about him here.
Through December we were pretty much in a wait and grow phase. With BPD you need the baby to GROW, because when they grow they a) are stronger and b) starting growing new lung tissue. He was still intubated, the doctors wanted him to get to 2kg and then re-evaluate. There was a lot of talk about needing to do a tracheostomy. Which in theory would be a “faster” route. And yes, is sometimes necessary.
At some point mid December it was found that Oliver had the same infection that he had several weeks earlier in his tube, klebsiella. However, with no other symptoms presenting this was just considered “colonization” in his tube area. So no treatment was being done.
On Christmas night he got a fever though so they determined (after verifying it wasn’t something else) that they needed to treat the infection with antibiotics. He was already on a maintenance dose of hydrocortisone (he had been tested and it was determined he wasn’t producing the cortisol that he should), so they upped that to a “stress dose” while they administered the antibiotics.
Oliver responded very well to both the antibiotics and the stress dose of the hydro cortisone. He was extubated 9:30am 12/31.
We’ve tried a few different methods of oxygenation since then but the good news is that he is still extubated. When they weaned his steroids, he did almost end up intubated again (this past Sunday). He was just working way too hard to breathe. We had a consult with the endocrinologist on Monday and it was determined that we weaned too quickly on the steroid.
He is now on a nasal canulla IMV and back on the higher dose of hydrocortisone and doing well. The plan at this point is to continue that with a VERY slow wean on the steroid. While getting him to GROW. Good thing is, he is now 6lbs 4oz! From a little 1lb 10oz at birth.
Here are a few pictures along the way and a cute little video of him, I absolutely LOVE that I can now hear his voice 🙂
In “wait and grow” phase in December.
Oliver’s first Christmas
Kangaroo care with Mommy
Extubated and loving it.
Daddy holding Oliver for the first time.
First bath from Mommy. The nurses did it while he was intubated.
A couple of days ago, I was able to see him without ANYTHING in his mouth for the first time. Here’s a short little video of him chatting with me <3
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