April 13, 2010

Our little guy has surpassed 2 pounds! As of today, he weighed 2 lbs. 1 oz. and he’s grown 1.1 inches since he was born (he’s now 13.1 inches long). The PN he’s on is doing the trick; however, his bilirubin level is increasing… not a good thing. His nurse talked to us tonight about starting him on a new omega that’s in a trial phase. Apparently a surgeon at Children’s Hospital has been experimenting with it. We were told that it’s been quite effective and long term use shows no signs of damage to the liver; babies are actually coming to Children’s from all over the country just to get it. I’ll talk to the doctor tomorrow and most likely sign the consent for him to enroll in the study as soon as possible.

His desats (drops in his oxygen saturation) have continued; some of which are really bad. I guess all micro preemies (babies born before 26 weeks gestation) have this problem, but he’s dropping his levels too frequently. To rule out infection as a contributor, his blood has been tested. We’ll have the final culture results by the morning, but so far it’s been negative. He’s also getting a dose of caffeine every night at 8:00 to try and minimize the desats.

Dr. Hansen detected a faint heart murmur when she was rounding yesterday. According to her, it’s nothing to be concerned with at the moment. Hopefully it will go away as quickly as it developed.

When I called in for an update around 4 am this morning, his nurse said he had been crying. Because he has the vent tube down his throat and between his vocal cords, you can’t hear him cry. All you see is his little face scrunch up and his mouth open wide… it’s so heartbreaking! He was taken off the Fentanyl drip yesterday afternoon and his nurse said he started showing withdrawal signs last night and early this morning. Once she gave him a Fentanyl bolus he was a much calmer baby. He’ll get a few boluses a day for a bit and then he should be able to kick the habit!

As Benjamin has stolen our hearts, he’s stolen his nurses’ hearts. As hard as it is for us to leave him at night, we know he's loved and in good hands.