Selective Hearing

I know everyone has heard of selective hearing...I know I've used the comment multiple times with Keith! Well I guess I really always thought that it was a farce...that the person really did hear everything but just chose not to answer. Now I know it is real as I do it every night. When Keith gets home from work he takes Jayce for the next few hours and couple of feedings so I can have some time to myself and catch up on all the sleep I miss at night. Usually around 9-10 I go to bed and Keith feeds Jayce again and put him to bed. My time to take over is around the 2:00 feeding until morning. It is amazing how I tune out all noise until 2ish. I don't hear Jayce cry, Rosie's snoring, Keith brushing his teeth or getting ready for bed, the TV...nothing. Then like clockwork every night around 1:45 I start to "listen" for Jayce. I'm really not sure how I even do it but about every 1 1/2-2 1/2 hours all night long I listen for the sounds of him waking up so I can get in there, change his diaper and feed him before he really wakes up. By the time he is done eating he usually falls back to sleep on his own. I just think it is neat how I choose to tune out all noise until it is my turn to take over again.

1 month checkup

Jayce passed his 1 month check-up with flying colors. He's put on 2 lbs since birth and now weighs in at 10 lbs 15 oz (75%). I thought that 11 lbs seemed pretty big but it is actually small for his height which is now 23 1/4" (95%) which puts him at the top of the charts. So I guess we can feed him the enormous amount of food that he wants. 6 oz at one feeding just seems so much for a little guy but I guess his body needs that amount. Man I wish my metabolism was like his!

I brought out the video camera today and I just need to charge up the batteries so hopefully I can put up some film of him soon. He's really beginning to react with you. I can't wait for the first intended smiles. He's also beginning to think that the changing table isn't such a bad place to be...which is great for us as the little guy goes through 2-3 outfits a day. I still don't have to do laundry every day but every other is pretty accurate. I found out that you can't have enough bibs or burp cloths...I never seem to have enough of them. Also they sell these disposable pads that you can put on top of the changing pad cover and they are priceless. They prevent you from having to wash the changing pad every day...maybe even twice a day. You know that I am not one for producing unnecessary waste and I hate throwing these away but I'm telling you that these pads are better than I imagined.

Anyone need to go baby shopping sign me up as there are totally things that are essential...like the baby Bjorn and the bouncy/vibrate seat. I can't imagine getting by without those items. The amount of crib sheets and mattress pad covers are overrated....you definitely don't need 6...2 or 3 is sufficient. Oh and this is a lot more work than you can ever imagine! :)

Kodak gallery of Jayce's 4th week

It is amazing the development Jayce has made over the last two weeks. He stays awake now and entertains himself for a brief period of time. We are not sure what he looks at but it amuses him and that is ok with us. He'll track our voice when we move around a room and he really holds his head up for a good chunk of his awake time...there is definetly some big bobble head moments still though. He's also starting to outgrow the newborn clothes and move into some of the 0-3 months. We have another Dr appt on Monday and it will be interesting to see how much he grew. He eats like a maniac but I don't think he's gotten that much bigger.

But here are some pictures from this last week.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=nvgkyr9.4ytlo1h5&Uy=-2ll4i0&Ux=0

Sitting up like a big boy

Here is a picture of Jayce sitting up like a big boy for Thanksgiving and one of him holding up his head during "tummy time".

Laughing, Holding our Head Up & Grabbing for Daddy's Hand

So, we've had some milestones this week...Jayce laughed for the first time (not consciously though), he can rotate his head from side to side during "tummy time" and Keith is convinced he has mastered the eye/hand coordination...well at least when the object is placed a few inches in front of his eyes. He did grab for Keith fingers and made contact 5 times in a row.

So we are having fun. Grammy & Grampy Narrow babysat this past Sunday and Keith and I went to Matthew's baptism (Liz & Eb's new little boy). It was nice to get out of the house for a bit even though we are both tired...makes you still feel like a real person....not a robot who operates on a 3 hour schedule.

Here is another picture....oh and we compared baby pictures and decided that he has the shape of my face but all of Keith's facial features. Not sure who's chin though as neither of us had very defined chin as a baby.

Kisses

Jayce is so funny. When he is hungry (b/c I told you we never feed him right!) he'll turn his head toward my face and give me a big wet kiss (well I call it a kiss but it really isn't) and then if he is close to my nose, he'll actually start sucking the tip of my nose...which puts me in stitches...he really has no idea where the boob is!

Kodak gallery of Jayce's 3rd week

Jayce is 3 weeks old today. It feels like it has been an eternity though already! Here are a few pictures of his 3rd week of life.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=nvgkyr9.arhcadix&Uy=-oh22yf&Ux=0

Night vs Day

We must have done somthing right yesterday and last night as Jayce only woke up for one feeding and went back to sleep right away. I know I'm going to jynx it as I am writing this but I actually got some sleep. Now we need to figure out what we did that worked!

Meltdowns

How can one little creature go from being peacefully asleep at the start of one minute to screaming one's head off at the end of the same minute? That is a truely amazing feat that Jayce seems to do 10 times a day. We have to wake him up during the day to feed (as he'd sleep the whole day away if we let him) and within a few seconds he acts as though we never fed him before. I swear we feed him so if you are around to witness this behaviour please know that we do feed the bugger.

His Dr appt on Monday went great. He's up to 9 lbs 8 oz and 22 1/4 inches long. This puts him in the 90th % on weight and >95th for height. So those of you that were going with the double recessive genes I'm sorry I think you were wrong...he's going to be one tall little guy.

Also he has started to recognize Keith and I. The only bad thing is that he knows now that when we put him down we are going to walk away (which triggers another meltdown). So he needs to be sound asleep before he goes into his crib...I love playing this game at 4:00 in the morning let me tell you!

Let's hope he never runs for office.

The visting nurse came by today and said that Jayce is doing great. They gave him a clean bill of health. She said his lungs are healthy and clear, his color looks good and he seems to be adapting well outside of the hospital sterile environment. She even said we could go for a walk today. So out into the 40 degree weather we went. Of course we bundeled Jayce up. We got this hand-me-down snow outfit from Erica and Keith had fun...take a look at the pics.

Sleeping in my crib.

Thought you might like this picture of Jayce just waking up from a nap in his real crib. He managed to take his hat off during his nap but kept his mittens on?

He pulled another 3-7 "I'm not sleeping" night but Keith and I switched off every two hours this time. I took the 2 o'clock feeding until 4 when Keith rescued me and I slept for a couple hours and then I relieved him. It is amazing how long two hours seems when you are rocking, walking, changing positions, changing diapers etc for the whole time...plus trying to stay awake yourself. But true to Jayce nature he's been sleeping soundly all morning. I just had to wake him to eat and wake him up while he's eating. An amazing trick the nurses showed us is to place your finger under their chin in that soft spot and they immediately begin to suck again. Keep that in your back pocket...it is very useful...or you'll be feeding a hungry infant every two hours.

We survived the night

Last night was so much better than any of the hospital nights. Jayce actually slept for most of the time in between his feedings and only stayed awake from 3am to 7 am this morning and he actually wasn't in distress either during that time...he was mostly comfortable just being awake and a little fussy. I think having a dark, beepless room (beeps and buzzers were constantly going off in the nusery) with no other crying room-mates might have been the big step he needed. And he's already adjusted his "snacking" period to the daytime. So hopefully this first 24 hours is an indication of how the remaining will go! :)

Oh and I do have to take a moment and explain that this child has decided that he only poops in clean diapers. Every time we changed him last night, we literally just put on a clean diaper (we don't even have a chance to fasten it) and he poops. He did it twice to Keith in one diaper change. It is only a matter of time before we get pooped on!

We're home!

Yeh. Jayce came home today. He was discharged from the hospital at 12:00 and daddy has been taking care of him all afternoon. I have the night shift since that is his cranky snacking period. He literally ate them out of all the breast milk at the hospital last night...when we got in today he was ready to eat again and they were just about to supplement him with formula. They call him Goliath at night as they can't believe how much he eats. He must be making up for that first week of no food.



Here is a picture of his first car seat event (he was not happy) but once he got home he snuggled up and sleept. BTW, Rosie and the cats right now could care less that he's here. Neither of the cats are even curious and Rosie only cares when we are all in Jayce's room (with the door closed) and she whimpers outside the door as she wants to join us.


And our house is finally warm. The little bugger is pretty chilly so we've trying to figure out what a comfortable temperature is and how many pieces of clothing he should be wearing. At the hospital they always had a bunch of blankets over him so he is used to being very warm. Today he seemed very cold to us but we don't want to put too many layers on him. All the little things we need to learn.

Kodak gallery of Jayce's 2nd week

Here is some pictures of Jayce's second week of life.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=nvgkyr9.8hb6682h&Uy=-11lz6j&Ux=0

Another fun night.

It is almost like I have two kids...a day time Jayce and a night time Jayce. He really is two different babies. I spent last night in the hospital again just get more experience with the nurses there and night time Jayce. He is very much a spirited baby at night, rarely sleeps and wants to "snack" every hour. It was a lot of work and I hardly got any sleep but I'm beginning to know him a bit better and I actually think that things will be easier at home. That way he isn't on such a schedule, won't be connected to so many wires...and I won't be giving him a report card! Plus there will actually be a differentiation between night and day.

So, this morning the nurses went over with me all the DISCHARGE paperwork. They are saying we can bring him home tomorrow. YEH! So I'm actually home today getting things ready and sort of cleaning up our house. We haven't done much but go to the hospital, eat and sleep over the last couple of weeks. I'll let all the great nurses take care of him for the next 24 hours and get prepared for the little guy to come home. Plus we need to pick up Rosie from Chris & Michelle (who offered to take care of her for a few days...which turned into a few weeks!) We love you Chris & Michelle and are so thankful that you've been watching Rosie for us. There is no way we could have taken care of here as well with all the crazy hours we've been putting in away from home. I'm hoping that with all this confusion that Rosie is ok with Jayce. We'll have to be pretty cautious for the next week to make sure the animals are ok with Rosie and that Jayce doesn't have any adverse reaction to their hair/dander. The Drs said that he should be like every other kid now and should not experience any long term chronic lung disease due to his infection but we need to be very careful this flu/cold season that he doesn't get sick as his lungs still need some time to fully heal. Sorry no visiting if you have the sniffles!

I'll post some going home pictures tomorrow!

A little less dazed by the flash!

Here is another picture of Jayce. A little less dazed by the flash but with a furrowed brow.

We made it through the night

Well I do have to say that Jayce is slightly more active at night but definitely not terrible. He only sleeps about 1 out of every 3 hours...but it is mostly b/c he is hungry. He wants to eat every 2-3 hours at night compared to every 3-5 hours during the day. Plus he does need to be held at night after he feeds before you put him down in his crib. But together we got through the night with a good "report card" and they decided to pull the Morphine today. So the little guy is going to go cold turkey! Here's praying that he doesn't need to go back on it.

Hoping only a few more days.

Jayce got another level of wean from the Morphine today. Only one more wean to go and then a 24-48 hour monitoring before he can come home! Keep your fingers crossed that he tolerates this latest wean. I'm planning on staying here in the hospital tonight as the night time shift appears to be his witching hour. He gets graded every 3 hours on everything from how well he sleeps to how many times he sneezes. It is really crazy. But every time he gets a "bad" score (a score above 8) they keep him at his same level of Morphine for another day...which mean another day here and not at home. So I want to see how "terrible" he is at night. The poor little guy probably just has his day and night times switched....you can't tell at all what time of day it is in here. Plus do they expect him to be wonderful 24 hours of the day? He is a baby you know! And he does great during the day when we are here. He rarely fusses and pretty much sleeps all day. If he was showing signs of withdrawal he wouldn't just have a bad 8 hours...he'd have a bad 24 hours. The Drs play it very conservative, which I understand, but after hanging out with Jayce day after day I really don't feel that he is showing withdrawal symptoms and I'm hoping that me being here tonight will help him get over this last hurdle and hopefully come home sooner. Here he is only 2 weeks old and I'm already worried about his report card!

No tube!

Here is my first tubeless picture!... though I am a little dazed by the flash.

No more oxygen tube

The Drs today decided to keep Jayce at his current level of Morphine but wean him of all O2. So, around 2:00 today they removed Jayce's oxygen tube. He's been doing really well for the last hour, breathing well and processing the ambient air correctly...so we are hoping he keeps down this road. I'm not sure if he's figured out that the tube is gone yet as we've finally figured out that we needed to put him in the outfits that fold over his hands so he doesn't pull the tube out.

They are also letting him decide when he is hungry...before he was forced to eat every 3 hours...now they are letting him decide when to eat. This way he can sleep longer periods during the day and hopefully be a little less fussy at night.

I'll post some tubeless pictures later tonight when I get home.

Small Strides

Jayce had another good day yesterday. They reduced the air flow that he's getting through the tube so we are hoping that in the next few days he'll be able to have the tube out of his nose...his new thing is that he pulls the tube out himself but then gets it stuck in his mouth and that he likes even less than the tube in his nose. He has also learned to pull off the mittens we put on his hands (so he can't grab the tube). He seriously has those mittens off in less than 1 minute from when we put them on....every time! He is going to be a little trouble maker.

Oh everyone says he looks so much like Keith..which is very true. And we now know that he also hiccups like his dad. The only two people in my life that I know have hiccups daily. I can't even remember the last time I had hiccups.

We've Graduated!

Last night the Drs said that Jayce was doing so well that the graduated him from NICU care and moved him over to Special Care. It is still right in the same area but the Special Care has a different nursing staff that is more specialized in take home care practices and they let the parents be more hands on (not like we weren't already...Keith did change 2 poopy diapers yesterday!). So this is one step closer to going home! Yeh. It was kinda sad last night to leave behind the awesome nurses that we've gotten to know so well over the past week and a half. One of the nurses Sue was so great and came in to check in on him today. I think they've really begun to look forward to his daily improvements as much as we have.

They also did wean him off the Morphine last night. And they actually decreased it by 50%, which is a huge step....the other Dr mentioned only weaning him by 10% increments. His scores were a little higher over night so we are hoping that don't have to go back up in dose. With Keith and I here today we can hopefully keep him soothed enough to stabilize through this latest wean. We pretty much spend the whole day here whenever we can. But now that Keith has gone back to work, Keith & my mom have been taking turns spending the weekdays with me here. Hopefully we have only one more full week here and we can bring the little bugger home.

Like Keith questioned the other night..."do we have a new baby?" Every day we wake up by ourselves and it just feels so strange as we know we gave birth to Jayce but he isn't with us yet. We both just can't wait to get him home.

No more feeding tube.

Jayce is either eating from a bottle or boob at all feedings! So they removed his feeding tube. One less tube going through his nose. We are struggling with breast feeding but he appears to be eating his fill and can make every 3 hours until his next feeding.

Also they lowered his O2 level and he is only getting 25% O2 through the nose. His flow rate is still high to keep a pressure going through his lungs until he clears all that fluid. They had givin him another diretic last evening but his output wasn't extremely high so hopefully he's now gotten rid of all that extra fluid he was carrying. His breathing is much better but he still has some shallow, quick breathing moments. If his breathing continues to be good and he doesn't retain any more fluid that is a good sign that his lungs are healed. We will be able to tell over the next few days what the status is.

Now our long pole is going to be weaning off the Morphine! Ughh. Hopefully they will step him down another level tonight.

Drugged up baby boy

Jayce's day today was very uneventful as he was massively drugged up from the doses of Morphine that they were giving him every 3 hours. The kid never even woke up for his feedings. (thankfully tube feeding doesn't require an awake kid!) There was a lot of "stuff" going on in the NICU this morning and the doctors were very busy tending to urgent matters but when we got around to talking with them in the late afternoon we pressed them on the dose he was getting. They said that they'd evaluate reducing his dose in the morning, but all the nurses chimed in and said how sleepy and drugged up he was all day and that they agreed with us on reducing his dose this evening. So at the 6:00 feeding he got a smaller dose of morphine. "Tiger team" Laura came on at 7:00 and when I called in a few minutes ago to see how the reduced dose was doing she had some wonderful news to share.....JAYCE HAD HIS FIRST BOTTLE!! Yeh one step away from the tube feeding. He seems to be tolerating the reduce dosage much better and was actually awake for a brief period of time and comfortably went to sleep about 1/2 hour after he ate. So hopefully overnight he will continue to tolerate this smaller dose and we can continue to make strides with feeding tomorrow. I really hope we made the right decision to reduce his morphine level so soon....I don't want a setback...but I also don't want a drugged baby...where is that fine line?

Overnight update

It appears that Jayce is tolerating the low level dose of Morphine that they are giving him and had finally calmed down overnight. Our "tiger team" nurse Laura was on last night and she moved him to a quiter corner of the room where hopefully he will sleep better with less distraction. He also finally dropped some weight...over 9 oz of fluid came out of him yesterday and he weighed in a 8 lbs 12 oz last night! Way to go buddy! That was great. Hopefully if they do another chest xray today he'll have less fluid around his lungs and can finally take some big breaths. We'll have to see if they think he needs another dose of the diruretic but that was one step in the right direction.

Hope you all enjoy the pictures we posted.

Kodak gallery of Jayce's 1st bath

This was a comedy show...Grampy Narrow & Keith giving Jayce his first bath. The pictures doen't do the event justice but my mom and I were both laughing and the story went around the nurses staff and everyone was getting a good kick out of the event. The nurses were proud of my dad for helping out...they said no grandfather ever helped give the first bath.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=nvgkyr9.8smgfuoh&Uy=-8patq4&Ux=0

Kodak gallery of Jayce's 1st week

Here are a few pictures of Jayce's first week. Just a caution there are a few pictures in here with him hooked up to all sorts of tubing/machines etc.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=nvgkyr9.1a9ic15t&Uy=pzdy5t&Ux=0

Cure withdrawal from one drug with another?

Today was sort of frustrating as Jayce is not doing too well because of withdrawal symptoms from the sedative that they've had him on for the past week. (Recall they pulled the IV line yesterday that was giving him the drug) He's was running a fever today and really couldn't get himself settled. He barely slept 1 hour all morning. He did much better in the afternoon when Keith's mom and I were holding him but I do have to admit that this was the most we've heard the little guy cry. After talking with the doctors I reluctantly agreed to start him on Morphine. I just love it how you cure withdrawal symptoms from one drug with another additive drug! One of the side effects of withdrawal from the sedative is a increased respiratory rate and they want to make sure that he doesn't have a setback in the breathing department as he's made so much headway. They also did another chest xray and they did find that he was retaining fluid around his lungs which was also making it difficult for him to breathe. They administered a diuretic early afternoon today and the little guy peed 5 oz today! I never felt such heavy diapers. Hopefully he can get rid of some more fluid overnight and we can see a reduction in his breathing rate tomorrow.

We did practice breastfeeding at each feeding today and the little guy did amazingly well for someone who is used to people only shoving things in his mouth that choke him. We definitely have a long way to go though. But it was really nice just to hold him up close and bond a little bit. It seems like he's been in our lives forever yet we are really only getting to know him over the last couple days.

He did make some additional headway on his oxygen saturation level though. He was getting 50% oxygen through the nose tube and they dropped that to 37% as even with his labored breathing his is doing a great job with processing the oxygen that his body needs.

It seems as though we made so much progress so fast but looks like things are going to be a bit slower from here on out...especially now that we've gone on the morphine we are going to have another drug to wean off of after he gets better. Each day at a time. Til tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!

So yesterday Jayce got the IV line out and we got to dress him up in Halloween outfits. He wants to know which outfit you like better? He did very well last night and is not showing too many signs of withdrawal. He is running a low grade fever and his breathing is labored but they haven't had to give him any morphine yet (hopefully they won't have to either). He did get his first bath yesterday from Grampy Narrow and Dad. Oh it was a comedy show. Jayce was in rare spirits and Dad and Grampy Narrow were running around trying to get the bath over quickly. All I know is that Jayce better start liking the water soon or Daddy is going to have one battle on his hands! :) We also got our first eyeball picture. He usually blinks at the flash and closes his eyes...but we snuck in this one picture. Enjoy!Today we still need to work on eating. We didn't try yesterday as he is breathing very fast. He's put on another ounce of fluid and that may be affecting his breathing (as he retains more fluid his lungs can't expand fully). Most babies loose their excess fluid in their first days but since he was IV fed and now nose fed he doesn't seem to be dropping that fluid. Hopefully now that the IV is out he'll shed some of it...he's already up to 9 lbs 5 oz!