More Baker Photos

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So far everything is going well. Baker just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and hasn't scared us in a while. He hasn't had a doctor appointment in a week or so, but they will start back fairly regularly in October. Since I don't have much of an update, I leave you with some pictures…

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Second Week Home

This has been a good week for all of us. Teresa's parents came down the first part of the week. Last time they saw him, he weighed under 2 pounds and was really sick. Now he's a big boy with multiple chins and lots of chub. Baker loved his Grandparent time.

Baker had two appointments this week, one with the GI doctor and the other with the Ophthalmologist. Baker has acid reflux issues now so he is on Zantac. So far it looks like it's helping. The GI doctor also gave us the o.k. to bottle feed once a day and to slowly up the amount of food he's getting. At his last weigh in he weighed an ounce under 7 pounds.

The visit with the Ophthalmologist could have been better. The one that he was seeing was on vacation so a substitute came in. This was the original one that told us everything was fine with his eyes, and that there were no signs of ROP at all. His inability to explain to us what's going on drove us crazy. I'm not sure if it was a language barrier issue, or if he's just not used to talking to parents but it was really hard understanding what he had to say and some of his information conflicted with what the original surgeon had to day. Basically what we took from it is that Baker's eyes have healed well from the surgery and they are looking really good. What that means and how that equates to an outcome in the future is anybody's guess, since the more we asked qualifying questions the more he confused us with circular non-committal answers. He took a page from the same book that the first Neonatologist we spoke to prior to his birth read from. I'm sure it would be titled "Covering Your A**, How to avoid explaining the possibility of a good outcome for fear of a lawsuit if it turns bad…". So his eyes are good for now, we have an appointment with the original surgeon in a week – so we'll get more info then.

Baker’s First Few Days Home…

This past week has been such a relief. Our son is home where he belongs and doing fine. It has been quite an adjustment, but I figure all new parents have to go through most of this – the lack of sleep, tag team night feeding, etc. We got the monitor situation calmed down quite a bit. Readers and a nurse suggested the Belt for the apnea monitor would help cut down some of the false alarms and it did. We still get alarms from the Oximeter, but not as frequent and we haven't heard anything out of the Apnea monitor for days.

He had his first venture out on Friday to see the pediatrician and this was interesting to say the least. Teresa practiced loading everything with Baker. As you can see by the pictures this is no small feat. Getting Baker into our car requires carrying Baker, the diaper bag, the oximeter, the apnea monitor, his feeding supplies(pump, bag, syringes and tubing) and his over the shoulder oxygen bottle (when leaving the stroller in the car of course). So our next milestone will be shedding the monitors. Even though that day when we have to give them back comes, we will probably not sleep again – they do provide a level of comfort that aids in parental rest.

We are getting adjusted quite nicely to our new life with Baker. We've only had one scare so far which prompted a call to his on-call pediatrician. When I picked up Baker his eyes went screwey. His left eye was looking all the way left and his right eye was looking all the way right. Baker's eyes have been fine since a few weeks after he opened them. He's already lost the lazy eye he had in the beginning and his eyes track really well together. He also went limp and non-responsive and oxygen levels started dropping. We jumped into action, Teresa grabbed baker and started stimulating him and I called the emergency on call number for his peditrician. His oxygen saturation didn't go down that low and he didn't lose that much color and was breathing so it was weird. One of the peditricians in the group called back and while I was describing what was going on Baker came back to normal.

We were told to monitor him, check his temperature and if he got a fever to call back. He then stayed awake and alert longer then he ever had since he's been home.

Baker is Home!!!!

We finally made it home with Baker last night around 8:00 PM. We had to wait all day for his oxygen, and we got a taste of the logistical nightmare that it is to go anywhere with our little miracle. He has a mini oxygen tank, oximeter, and apnea monitor that we have to carry around. All of these devices have 1 or more probes sticking on Baker and when we move him we have to be able to reach all the devices in case of an alarm. When we got home last night we met the home oxygen delivery person, who had the humongous oxygen tank for Baker's home use. The tank is about as tall as I am and is now part of our dining room. He has tubing that will stretch to every room of our home.

It was such a joyous moment seeing our wonder boy at home, no nurses, doctors or other sick babies just Baker and Mom and Dad. We finally can close the first chapter of Baker and start the next.

Of course we didn't sleep much at all last night. Both his monitors false alarmed any time he moved. The oximeter sounds like an old alarm clock just louder and the apnea monitor lets out an ear piercing beep (like a smoke alarm). Once one of them goes off it's like a spiral effect – it scares Baker and makes him twitch and cry which sets off another alarm. He had no apneas or heart rate dips last night every single alarm we got was a false positive. We put a call in to the company that provided all the alarms to see if they have any ideas to stop the false positives, we have to at least be able to get a full hour of sleep in at a time right?

Here is to everyone that has followed his progress and prayed for his good will and has provided support for us and him. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. The blog will continue so stay tuned…

Anticipation…

Well of course, yesterday wasn't the actual discharge date. The order for his take home oxygen and oximeter just went in about an hour ago so we are patiently waiting for a call back from the company that provides this equipment to verify that it can be delivered today.

To catch you up on his progress, he is doing excellently!!! We had a great time rooming in with him, and ever since have been soooo ready to bring him home. The nesting thing kicked in full force with Teresa, and the house is more than ready for his arrival. He was diagnosed at the end of his last week by his new pediatrician that he may have an inguinal hernia. He had a surgeon take a look and they found that it wasn't a hernia but hydrocele instead. (Please click links to find definitions of each..)

We got confirmation that he is coming home today, the oxygen and oximeter are on the way. Yippie!!! We will get pictures and try to post tonight on how his first day home went..