Day 23 - The Warriors Fighting Hard

Day 23 – Wednesday, August 9, 2017

AGE: 3 weeks, 1 days old (28 weeks gestation)

Lochlan: Weight is 2 lb 2 oz. (Birth weight: 1 lb 10.8 oz.)
                Length  in. (Birth Length 13 in.)
Lex:        Weight is (Birth weight: 1 lb 10.8 oz.)
                Length is  in. (Birth length: 13 in.)

 Lex did well overnight. His Oxygen was a little high (40s-50s) and he stayed at a respiratory rate of 45. He has not been on any dopamine (used to raise his blood pressure) since shortly after his surgery (yay). He is not on a morphine drip, but is getting morphine as needed. His incision is sore so it helps him relax for care times which are every 4 hours. We were told to expect him to get sicker for a couple days before began to get better. His crits were a little low this morning so he will be receiving a transfusion this morning. We were even told his is stable and would likely be stable to handle kangaroo care this evening.

Lochlan is doing well. He looked a little pale last night and this morning. They are now only checking his hematocrits once a week, but went ahead and checked them again this morning. He went down from last night so they thought he would benefit from another red blood cell transfusion. This evening, he will increase his feeds.  Lochlan’s soft spot is still soft today suggesting he is not accumulating fluid in his brain quickly so no interference will be needed today. I arrived at the hospital at 5 am to do 3 hour kangaroo with Lochlan. It was great. He has tubes in his mouth so he isn’t able to move much. He did, however, turn his head the other way while we were snuggling. This is a no-no since his respiration support could be affected. He didn’t have any issues and was quickly moved back to his left side. I am looking forward to the day we can snuggle without a bunch of tubes in his mouth. The PDA surgery is not off the table for Lochlan, but we do not have a scheduled surgery either. One day at a time. We are hopeful his respiratory support will be stable enough to avoid the surgery.

Poppy stays with us most nights and we are so fortunate to have family close by to help watch her 2-3 days/nights a week. This allows Kyle and I to have uninterrupted time at the hospital.  I still can’t lift her and get pretty worn out easily so Kyle ends up carrying the bulk of our weight. She is 2 and is doing great. She pretty much thinks she is on vacation, but she has her 2-year-old moments so we are trying to spend quality time with her to make her feel special too.