While speaking to the other doctors and talking about plan of actions, the doctor said that the two teams (neonatologists and surgeons) agreed that we are competent parents and will continue to just use the Xeroform wrapping, which is basically a petroleum based gauze. The goal is to keep the sac wet and help the skin to grow over his Omphalocele. Think of keeping a cut, or strawberry from sliding in baseball/softball, moist with Vaseline and covering it. It never scabs over and skin grows back almost immediately.
Since Hayden reached his feeding goal today, we were going to wait 24 hours, then give him the same amount of shorter periods of time with gaps in between to give him sleep/wake cycles and times of hunger. Well, the doctors and nurse said he is doing so well, they were going to skip the wait and go ahead and try him on his bottle. Kelsea and I would like to thank everyone who said a prayer for Hayden today because he was a champ! We tried 20ml in a bottle at 11 this morning and we had no idea what to expect. We thought he might play with the nipple, spit the milk out, purse his lips together and not take the bottle. Well, to see how this ended up, just take a look at the two videos below. FYI....the laughing you hear coming from myself, Kelsea, and our nurse is due to Hayden "making room" for his milk! He is definitely not afraid to make his presence known. He is loud and proud!
Well, after his feeding (he took down all 20 ml) he was worn out. Kelsea burped him and he was out like a light! The nurse said his vitals (heart rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation) were the best she has ever seen out of him. He basically slept for 4 hours straight until he woke up and took down another 16 ml! During this time, Kelsea had a little scare. She came back from the bathroom and her incision was bleeding a little bit. She has had zero issues since her surgery. Since she hasn't really even had any bleeding, this really concerned me. She called the doctor's office and they told her to go to the Pregnancy Assessment Center at Barnes. Ok. Now, I'm really getting freaked out on the walk over. I had visions of her incision opening up and her having to be put back under so they could reclose the site. It also didn't help when she had to be "admitted" to Barnes again just so she could lay on a bed! However, after about 90 minutes of sitting in a tiny little room that was making me claustrophobic, another wonderful (imagine that) OB resident came in, said it was just a tiny opening in the outermost part of her skin and closed it up with some topical solution and we were good to go!
However, our short visit was filled with lots of questions and joking around with the nurses because they all remembered us as the "ones who were going to be on the news." They have probably seen hundreds of patients in the past 3 weeks, but we stuck out! They all kept asking when it was going to be on tv, and promised to watch, etc... This has kind of been the norm the past few days. The NICU doctors keep talking about their "star" who is going to become more famous now and not just because he is doing so well! I will post more information regarding tomorrow night's newscast on Fox 2 and how you will be able to view it if you are not in the St. Louis metro area.
Once we arrived back to the NICU, the Fetal Care Center public relations representative came to the NICU and talked to us about doing their interview and film next week sometime. Again, something that was pushed back due to Hayden surprising us a few days early!
I'm not sure if it was the imitation Starbucks White Mocha I had from the Barnes & Noble bookstore or if it was my nerves when we had to walk back over to Barnes, but my stomach was not feeling good. I left the hospital around 5:15 and left my bride behind. Surprisingly, traffic was minimal and I was able to make it back to Creve Coeur in record time! I even had time to make it to Walgreen's and treat myself with some Charmin toilet paper! Imagine your life using toilet paper from work, 24/7 for 3 weeks straight. For those of you who work in the QPS, you know what I mean! And yes....I did just go there!
Well, my wife just got off the elevator and sat down next to me. She is going to tell me about how she learned how to wrap Hayden's omphalocele tonight (being the "competent" parents we are and all!) and I am going to impress her with me showing her how I "cleaned house" which basically meant organizing the room that we are living out of!
Information for Fox 2's newscast/report on Hayden and his birth. It will be on the 9 o'clock newscast, Thursday February 7th, but we don't know exactly at what point. There are several ways that it can be viewed if you are not in the metro St. Louis area. You can access their live streaming site by clicking on this link http://fox2now.com/on-air/live-streaming/ or if you have an iPad/iPhone, Android and/or Blackberry and would like to watch on any of those, they have an app that can be downloaded at this link http://fox2now.com/2012/08/24/download-fox-2s-news-weather-apps/.
If you happen to miss the live feed, you can also go to the first link and find archived stories. I will also post the video in a future post.
We have a busy four days ahead of us, but we are looking forward to seeing family and friends again. Kelsea's mom is making it back down tomorrow afternoon and staying for the weekend. My sister and our friend Chris is flying in late Friday night, and my parents will be back down for a couple of days as well. It is tough to share time with him, but we manage! We have gotten pretty selfish!
No comments:
Post a Comment