It's a Christmas baby!

Merry Christmas!!  Josh has had a great day today, which makes three in a row, and makes for two very happy parents.  The day started out very good for Josh, but not so good for Mom and Dad.  Both of us woke up with sore throats, and so after having a wonderful Christmas brunch with friends, we went over to see Josh and had to wear masks the whole time we were in there with him.

As I said, Josh has had a really good day, which is a continuation of two really good days.  He is breathing really well, taking his feedings really well, and has only had two episodes of apnea/bradicardia in the last 24 hours.  He only needed to be stimulated for one of the episodes!  Josh lost 20 grams from yesterday to today, but the doctors said that this is most likely caused by the fact that he got blood two days ago, and they gave him lasix to help him eliminate the extra fluid volume in his little body.

In other news, the doctor's told us that Josh's heart murmur is back, and that if it stays, they may have to do an echocardiogram (ultrasounds of the heart) to check it out.  They did say that the reemergence of the murmur could be from that duct between his heart and lungs opening because of the infection, or lack of oxygen from the low red blood cell count, or just from immaturity.  The murmur is less noticeable now that he is on antibiotics, and has received a blood transfusion.  The doctors are much more comfortable giving Josh blood now that he has a directed unit available, and so they will test his hematocrit again tomorrow and may give him another infusion if his hematocrit is still low.  Yeah for Uncle Matt's blood going to good use!

Josh's feeds were increased to 4 ml per 3 hours, and he is still handling them well.  The doctors said that if he handles his feeds well for two days, then they will go back to increasing his feeds every 12 hours.  Josh did manage to pull his entire feeding tube (12 cm of it) when we first got there this morning.  He doesn't seem to like having tube stuck into him for some reason.  He did learn a lesson today though.  His lesson was that if he pulls his tube out, then it gets put back in.


The doctors also lowered his CPAP settings to only 10 breaths per minute as a backup to Josh's breathing, and he seems to be handling that very well.  He seems to be much stronger this time than when he came off of the ventilator the first time when he was less than a week old.  Mom and Dad are encouraged by Josh being able to stimulate himself when he has apnea and having less occurrences of apnea since being off of the ventilator.

Mom and Dad were only able to spend a short time with Josh today, because of not feeling all that great, but we were able to read the Christmas story to him, and were able to have some good awake interaction time.  We only hope that we didn't look too scary to him with our surgical masks on.  Mom and Dad then went home to get some rest.  Mom is still feeling decent, and the sore throat has mostly dissipated.  Dad on the other hand now has a full blown cold (sore throat, runny nose, cough, etc).  So he is going to have to have very limited exposure to Josh until he gets better, and Mom will have to have limited physical contact with Josh until she is sure that she will not get sick. Both Mom and Dad are bummed by this turn of events, but want to do what is best for Josh.

Prayer Requests:

• Josh not get sick from any bugs that Mom or Dad may have brought in before they knew they were sick
• Mom stay healthy, and Dad recover quickly
• Mom and Dad get the rest that they need, so that they do not get sick (or sicker)
• Josh continue to breath well, and not have any A's and B's (or very few)
• Josh continue to tolerate his feeds well and maintain or gain weight
• Josh's infection go away totally and he not develop any new infections
• Josh's heart murmur go away completely and not come back
• Mom's milk supply continue to increase to meet Josh's future demand

Praises:

• Josh is a wonderful Christmas present!
  
• Josh is continuing to breath really strongly with very few A's and B's
• The love and support of so many friends and family is more than we could have imagined and wished for.  We love you all.
  
• Josh has come so far in less than four weeks, and we are amazed at how well he is doing

 (Josh sleeping comfortably this morning- note the feeding tube is already wrapped around his arms)

 

 (Josh with the Christmas penguin that Zoe Long gave him.  Thank you Zoe!)

 

 (Josh with no tubes on/in his head.  This was after he pulled his feeding tube.  This is the first time we have seen him this way!  Isn't he beautiful!)

(Josh with his white Santa goatee and his Christmas hat - too bad we couldn't get the hat on his head)

 

(Josh getting ready to go back to sleep after a good visit with Mommy and Daddy)