Monday, June 26, 2006

Monday morning weigh-in


Our traveling nurse stopped by this morning with her portable scale.
Mathias is 7lbs 6oz (3300g) - up a full 6 lbs from birth!

It also means he put on a half a pound over the weekend...

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Bodybuilding

We returned to the Wayzata clinic this morning.
Mathias has put on almost a pound since coming home. He is now weighing in just under 7 lbs (3120g).

In all he is a quite good sleeper. We'll feed him around 11 and he'll normally make it through the night with one feeding break around 3. Mom & dad are holding up well!

Where's Waldo?

Sunday, June 18, 2006

D-Day

In the original plan, Mathias was supposed to be born today (which incidentally is Fathers Day in the US).

So in a parallel universe I could have been drinking loads of coffee today because I was up all night in the delivery room - instead of being up all night on milk/diaper/monitor-alarm duty.






Belated congrats to the Fargo Crew that predicted Mathias' release date of June 9th.
Watch your mailbox!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Hurdles - cleared and almost cleared

Mathias had an eye exam Friday. Specifically, they're checking for something called Retinopathy of Prematurity. It affects about half of all preemies to some degree. Being prematurely born, the retina is still growing and there is a risk that the vessels that bring blood to the retina don't develop as they should.

We have so far never been present when these exams take place and we've gotten some mixed messages on exactly how the test is done. Now that we have had the displeasure of being there for it, we can report that a tool that looks like a small spoon is used to move the eye ball around to inspect all parts of the retina. Yikes!

On a more pleasant note, his vessels are now 100% developed!

In his last hearing exam, his right ear passed but the left one did not. Nobody seems particularly alarmed and it is presumably just a matter of time. They'll test again in a few weeks. I'm still not clear on how they test his hearing without getting any feedback from him on what he hears or not...

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Happy three-month birthday!

Today, the little peanut turned three months!

We celebrated by making a first visit to our pediatrician. He is in Wayzata so the drive is about a third of going to Children's! Incidentally, the doctor has a son who was born at 1lb 2oz (just over 500g) so he has first-hand experience with preemies. The folks in Wayzata were notified pretty early on that we'd be coming there later so their staff have been checking in on him at Children's. That makes for a very smooth transition!

Mathias was given a clean bill of health although we will be making many return visits. The first one is on Friday for a third (might be fourth, I can't remember) eye exam.

For the foreseeable future, Mathias will be especially vulnerable to infection and disease. Ironically, one of the places that has the highest concentration of contagious children is... the waiting room at a children's clinic. For that reason we're instructed to simply bypass the waiting room and take the back door into the clinic. We're still asked to make appointments in advance.

Home sweet home

It has been almost a week since we came home from the hospital.

I'm not sure if it was the car ride home on Friday or the new surroundings that overwhelmed Mathias but he slept his way through most of the weekend. Consequently, he didn't eat enough.

At this stage he is supposed to gain at least a half an ounce (15g) per day. Come Monday his weight was the same as it was Friday... The folks at the hospital has instructed us to enforce a regimen of 10 feedings per day (relatively small ones) to boost his metabolism and make him want more food. We're now waking him up every couple of hours and trying every sales tactic in the book to convince him that he's really hungry. He is getting milk that is fortified with formula to 24 calories per ounce. In the morning he gets caffeine (still for the breathing) and in the evening it is a cocktail of vitamins. Caffeine and vitamins are served up mixed with a small amount of pear juice. Pear juice is one notch below prune juice...


By and large he seems very content in his new digs. We have even been able to take him out for a stroll in the neighborhood. Needless to say - it is terrific to be home!

Friday, June 09, 2006

Home



















Thanks, Everyone!
For Everything!

88+6 days


It seems like an eternity has passed.

Armed with a successful overnight stay in the halfway-house, a 6-pound boy who has been eating on his own for three days and had no breathing spells for weeks, and a hefty dose of exuberant optimism we're walking out.

It is a new day!



On training wheels

We spend Thursday night at the hospital.

Next to the Infant Care Center and ICU, Children's hospital has a small apartment. It is literally wall to wall with both units. It is a place where parents with children on the verge of going home can do a trial-run before the real deal. We were invited to give it a try last night (hence no blog update). We moved in with only our baby and the home monitor. We actually slept more that night than I thought we would. Didn't hurt to know that the doctors, nurses, and all the resources of Children's were right outside the door if needed.

Overall, it went well and Mathias even gained weight over night.
He is now 6 lbs!

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Wednesday

So far so good. Mathias has been bottling / nursing all day with no food via the tube.

The tube is still there just in case. As you may imagine, once it is there it doesn't do much harm but it nobody likes to have it re-inserted.

Russian artist Andrew Rykovanov has carved a portrait of Napoleon on a single grain of rice.

Until we develop those kinds of skills ourselves we avoid cutting Mathias' nails by using these handy sleeves that turn into mittens.

Mathias has a bad combination of small sharp nails, limited motor control, and skin - as they say - soft as a baby's bottom.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Progress... IV?

After a number of false starts this has a feeling of deja-vu. But today it seems we made great strides on the eating front. Mathias was putting away milk like it was going out of style*.

As of this afternoon they are trying a new attempt at not feeding him via the tube. We're back to all self-serve!



*Which, incidentally, it is in most of the western world.
But both the US and Sweden still consume a lot per capita though.
The Finns top the charts.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Day 84


If you're a glass-is-half-full kind of person you may attribute it to improved motor skills... but Mathias yanked out the feeding tube today.

The nurses didn't heed his practical argument and promptly returned it with more tape.

We'll see tomorrow if it was an indication that he's ready to eat on his own all the time.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

The longest week

Since last weekend, when we've been getting our morning updates from the hospital there has been a mixed bag of slightly weight gain and weight loss. For the week as a whole the net gain is zero. As I write it, it doesn't seem so bad but it certainly feels like a setback.

As a response they have bumped up his night time feedings via the tube. The regular feedings have had some mixed results - much of the time he'll eat for a few minutes and go to sleep. The old adage you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink never rang so true.

Today we are two weeks from Mathias' original due date on June 18. Feel free to place a bet on when he'll actually get to go home. If you get it right we'll scrounge up a prize. Something to distract the mind!

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Day 80

Was uneventful in the ICC. Mathias put away a fair amount of food without any incidents. In his room they have turned off the monitory that previously used to displace pulse, breathing rate, and oxygen levels. Instead they have installed the monitoring system that we'll eventually have with us when he comes home.

The system displays no numbers. It only has alarms that go off if the heart rate is too fast or slow and if the breathing stops for more than 20 seconds.

I think the change is primarily for our benefit. Over the past 11 weeks I think we may have gotten conditioned to answer the question how is Mathias doing? by looking at the computer screen whereas we, obviously, should look at him!!
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