NO MORE OXYGEN!?

They started William's nasal canula (I called it capula last post, sorry)... at 4 liters... they weaned him down to 3.5, then 2, then 1 this morning. While I was there, they took it out!!! William is now breathing completely on his own! I REALLY hope it stays that way!

His Jauntis is also cleared up, so no more photo therapy, no more mask over his eyes! The only thing he has on his face is a feeding tube, and that might be gone soon too! The nurse believed I could try breastfeeding him tomorrow. :) I am so excited! SO MUCH good news, I can't contain myself.

One Dr suggested it would only be a couple days before he could go home once he could try nursing, but the nurse today said that could take 7 days. :( I hope not. Matthew was saying she only said that because she doesn't want to see him go, because he's so cute! And I must agree.

We're still praying he keeps it up and I am again, letting myself get my hopes up and planning on bringing him home Sunday or Monday. Yay!

CPAP is gone for good?

The mask on his face, the CPAP, was taken off yesterday evening... then put back on three hours later, about 10:30pm. But, this morning, an awesome Dr decided to remove the CPAP and just put him on the nasal Capula on a higher level of oxygen, then they can take the level down as he compensates for himself.

I am so happy to see it off! William actually showed a bit of jauntis the last couple days, the least of our worries for sure, because he's at the right place if it really goes anywhere. Today the level was higher than they wanted, so they put him on photo therapy, which is just a simple lamp sending some light into as much exposed skin as possible. Because of that, his eyes have to be covered. So that's kind of a bummer we still can't see his whole face, but his little body is uncovered, and so cute! I was with him for about 2 1/2 hours this morning, he was holding my hand almost the whole time and needed attention for a while. They took off a couple sticky bandages and removed the CPAP while I was there, those little things bothered him a lot. Matthew's with him now and he's sleeping peacefully. I am just so happy we're moving forward and I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!

Feeding him is going well, if his belly keeps accepting the milk they're putting down the tube, in two days, he won't need any other IV nutrition - it will be 100% Mom's milk. :) That makes me happy to know I can help him in some way. No new pictures yet, I want one without the eye mask so you can see his face better.

William UPDATE!!!

You'll have to read the post below if this is your first visit to our blog since his birth.

Matthew and I went to the hospital hoping to witness them putting breastmilk in the tube that goes down to his stomach and hopefully hear good news after an x-ray would be taken. By the time we got there, they already had results in from the x-ray and there was NO MORE air in his chest after the tube had been sealed for 8 hours. So, wow, they decided to remove it already! So soon, we had no idea it would ever come out so soon. We're crossing our fingers that it really is how it looks and his lungs have healed wherever that opening was... he's still on the CPAP, his lungs have some functioning to catch up on and clear up some haze (they call it lung disease, but that sounds way more serious to me).

I got to change his diaper, Matthew got to put the breastmilk down the tube, we got to witness them remove the tube from his lungs, I have a picture of it. See how it curls like a pig's tail? That part and some of the straight part were all in his chest, so uncomfortable!

He was so alert and awake, his eyes were open for SO LONG and he was looking around and trying to grab at the velcro of the CPAP and other cords... acting just like a real newborn with life back into the picture! I have a picture of him with his eyes open! I only had my cell phone with me, but this picture is worth a bazillion words.

Love you all!

Pictures

Welcome William Gene Garner!

Born: December 6, 2009 Weight: 5 lb 15 oz Length: 18"

Our little William gave us a rough pregnancy and couldn't make it easy right off the bat either :)

As is common and expected with premature babies, his lungs weren't quite ready for our world, so he was taken to the NICU, expecting a 12-24 hour "transitionary" stay. However, after a couple x-rays, questions and scares, they discovered he had a pneumothorax. If you've seen the movie "Just Like Heaven" there's a hilarious scene where they help out a waiter who had a Tension Pneumothorax where they had to make an incision in his chest to free some air.

William's lungs allowed some air to escape into his chest, which put pressure on his heart and lungs and needed to be drained. (At first in x-rays, they thought it may have been fluid which could've been more serious like pneumonia or an infection, so air at this point is good news.) They attempted simply using a needle and syringe to suck some air out, but the opening in the lungs wasn't healed yet, so air accumulated again. This brings us to 11pm yesterday where Matthew and I were with him and were present for them surgically inserting a tiny tube into his chest that would constantly suck any possible air out of that space. I wish we had copies of the x-ray, technology is amazing, it was a simple procedure and William did great. He got morphine, what would you expect?

They didn't know (still don't know) exactly how long it would take the lungs to repair and recover, but once it's 100%, they'll remove the tube. Exciting news this morning was they sealed the end of the tube, which means it wasn't sucking air out to see if air accumulated again - so far so good! Way sooner than we expected for that... he still has some haziness where his lungs have 1-2 days of catching up to do, so he's hooked up to what they call a CPAP, giving his lungs a little bit of pressure with oxygen... if I were a doctor I could explain this all way better. Anywho, the numbers are looking great, they're going to attempt giving him some milk I pumped through a tube into his tummy around 3pm today... if it goes well, they'll continue to do so every 3 hours. About 5pm tonight, they'll take an x-ray to see the status of the haze and air. I'm allowing myself to get my hopes up so I can bear this. But I'm doing well and felling really good about it.

We love you all, appreciate your prayers. We know he's being watched over, he's a strong boy, if things continue on the right path, we could possibly have him home this weekend!!!

PS The labor was a terrible 13 hours, but ended on a humorous note when I told them "it's hard not to push..." and ta-da, 1 1/2 contractions later, he popped out - Dr. Wilde didn't even have both of his gloves on, but luckily he caught him! (I told them it was hard not to push!) ;)