Calen's Aiming High! Day 4

Good-evening. Sorry I am posting so late today. We had a positive day which with all the positives meant a lot was happening. So enjoy today's post. 

I am starting a new item to the blog. I will be posting a weight graph so that everybody can see how he grows. This will most likely be posted everyday as long as I have the new data to enter into excel that day. They always weight him everyday but they do not measure him so I will not be posting any of that information cause their just isn't any updates on it. He had his first decrease in weight today, which is fine, it is most likely related to a drop in water weight and now it will be time for us to start seeing upward motion. 

In the past days Calen should have been getting baths. However he was really having trouble keeping his temp up so they couldn't give him a full bath. They started out with his left arm yesterday and were unable to continue, but today he was really doing well. His temp was up at like 99 which they said was normal and the nurse was able to give him a complete bath and he tolerated it very well. So above is his bath check off sheet, all checked off. Yeah, no more stinky baby!!! More so, Yeah for stable temps, now we can think about holding him!!!! Ohhh while on the topic of cleanliness, Calen had his first bowel movements today. He had one early in the morning that the nurse said was good size and he had another prior to his 12pm diaper change cause I changed that one. So we know his bowel's are starting to work which is great news.

In the incubator there is a little doll. This little doll was given to us right after Calen was born. It is used to help condition Calen to smell of mom. Holly wore in on the inside of her gown for 2 days so that it would start to smell like her. Then it was placed in his incubator. When it was first placed in there they placed it over top of his eye's but have since moved it just into the incubator. It is a really neat idea and hopefully will help relax him when she first holds him.

So they left me alone in the room today and I was really curious as to what his heart and lungs sounded like so I stole a stethoscope and took a listen. Couldn't hear his lungs sounds for the life of me, everything is a bubbly in there because he has a bubble CPAP machine that vibrates his lungs. I could on the other hand hear his heart beat which was so cool to hear that little heart beat in that little body. On another great medical note they were able to remove his large bilirubin lamp. He is just down to the small white spotlight, so once again another great note about the day. 

Calen had his echocardiogram today. His nurse (front) and the echo tech (back) put him through the test. They were preforming the echo to check primarily for a Patent Ductus Ateriosis (PDA), a common heart abnormality that is more prevalent in premature babies. We actually forgot to ask this evening what the complete results of it were but the neonatalontologist that we had today Dr. Belcastro said right after the echo was done that Calen did have a PDA but it was very small and they would not being doing anything about it. They would check it again like 3 weeks or something like that to make sure it hasn't changed.

So somewhere throughout the day Calen managed to pee outside of his diaper but this had a positive side too it. Well a couple actually, one is that we know that his body is working and he is effectively making urine. The second great thing was is that Holly got to reach in and pick him completely up while the nurse changed his bed sheets. This was the first time we got to do something like this so it was really awesome, it made Holly really excited. She ended up getting to do it again later to weigh him, so hopefully I will get my turn tomorrow. In his left arm you may notice that their is a syringe hanging off his arm. He got a PICC line placed today. He priorly had an arterial and venous line in his umbilical cord but these were removed today and the new PICC is fully functional. They hooked up his TPN and lipids to it right after it was placed. This is a crucial step in us being able to hold him to continue to drop his risk of infections. It did take a really long time to get that thing in though, we waited in the family lounge for like an hour, but working with little people is a tough job.

The next great thing we got to do today was feed Calen breast milk. It was a trial day to see if he was going to tolerate it being in his stomach, and he did have to pass his meconium prior to getting it. We gave him a whopping 1ml of breast milk through his OG tube. Holly got to push it in. We spent a lot of time with him today and he did not have any gastric distention or spit up so it appears he tolerated that, tomorrow he will go to 1ml every 6 hours and once he is good with that after 24 hours they will move to 1ml every 3 hours and then it should progress from there. 

Holly had not yet got a chance to see Calen's eyes or top of his head yet. Since he was doing so well today his nurse took everything off of him so that she could see him. It was amazing to see what our baby looks like. He has a lot of hair already so we are pretty sure he is going to be just like Joey and have a pretty thick head of hair. He did attempt to open his eyes too, I don't think he managed to get them both opened up though.

In closing for tonight we would like to thank Katelyn Shellabarger, she is a student at the University of Dayton and she is studying music therapy, she is also a native of Arcanum. She provided us with several CD's that have a variety of music on them that have certain rhythms that when babies hear them it helps them generate better heart rate and breathing patterns. We put a CD player in his room and started playing the music while we are in the room with him. Thank you again everyone for your prayers and thoughts. God has been so amazing to us as everyday has been an amazing journey. We are going to be released from the hospital in the morning so Holly and I will be heading home. Tomorrow is our 3rd Wedding Anniversary, so we really have many things to be thankful for in our marriage.