Chasing Babies » 2006

Headache

February 28th, 2006 2 comments...sweet!

Tobie here: I told Eric I would do the post for today, but my head is about to explode so I’m going to keep it short. The babies are doing fantastic today. Cole was given Lasiks (sp?) again last night to help remove any fluid that might have been on his lungs. It worked great. You could tell he was feeling much better too. He was very awake and playful today.

Paige was doing amazing again. She looked so much bigger today when I arrived compared to yesterday. She is now at 3 lbs, 3 oz. {Cole actually lost some weight, mostly water weight from the drug, so he is now back down to 2 lb 14 oz }. The good news for Paige was that today her bed was moved to the corner which has much softer lighting and is much quieter than where she was residing before. I think she will love her new spot in the NICU.

The babies are awake a lot now that they are getting older. It is hard to not be with them when they want to be held all the time. They still aren’t at the point where I can hold both at the same time. So if I’m holding one and the other starts to cry, I feel awful. Luckily today our nurse held Cole to calm him down while I was holding Paige. I think I need more arms (or longer arms to accommodate the CPAP tubing). It’ll be good to get them home where Eric and I can each hold one baby if they both are needing us. I know…I shouldn’t use the “H” word…..

Posted in: About

New Look, Same Taste

February 28th, 2006 5 comments...sweet!

Yep I’m way to into this web site. Same stuff, different look. Enjoy.

The blog archives are on the left side bar. Just click on a month and you will see all posts for those months. Old posts may screw up the formatting of the website (you’ll see what I mean). I’m crazy for his site, but not that crazy I would go in and fix every post!

Posted in: About

By The Power Of Greyskull

February 27th, 2006 2 comments...sweet!

We had heard from 3 different nurses that Cole is very wide awake at 8 in the morning. Why 8 am? Beats us (you think he would accommodate us and be really awake in the afternoon, no such luck). So Tobie has been planning on going in very early to see him at his prime. It’s a p-n-a to get to the hospital that early because you have to fight traffic with the work force. So today was the big day. Tobie got up bright and early (which means I did to, dang it!). With traffic it took her over an hour and a half to get there. She got there around 8:45. So she missed Cole’s wide awake moments. It didn’t matter anyways, Cole was having a crap-tastic day. He hasn’t been doing so hot lately. He’s had some respiratory issues. He has some bad inflammation of the lungs. There were talks he might have to go back on the ventilator if he doesn’t get his act together. The doctors talked about another round of steroids, but decided to exhaust a few more options before we go that route again. So Cole’s mission for the day was to be left alone.

Paige on the other hand is doing just dandy. Tobie was holding her for a little bit and she started to get pissed. She flailed around for a little bit and then proceeded to rip out the CPAP tubes in her nose. When Paige gets upset, she shows it. Apparently she had some boogies that clogged her nose. I guess one way you could look at it is, she’s pretty smart because she lets you know when something is wrong or you could look at it like, she is going to be trouble because she is going to let you know when she isn’t happy! Speaking of keeping Paige happy, today was the first day of learning infant massage. Yes you read that right…Paige (like Mommy) loves massage. Today Paige had her feet and hands massaged using different massage techniques. You could visibly see her pleasure. If she was a cat, she’d be purring. Later this week we’ll learn how to massage the face, back, legs and arms. Cole would have been massaged too if he was feeling better. Hopefully tomorrow.

So most of the day Cole was left alone to improve. Near the end of the visit, Tobie looks inside his bed and sees something out of the ordinary. Cole had somehow managed to flip himself out of his little donut and was now leaning up against the glass of the bed. No one can believe how strong he is. This kid has been struggling for the past couple of days, trying to breathe, and somehow found the strength to flip himself outside his area of security. I don’t know many 31 weekers, but I have to believe he is the strongest baby in his weight class, ever! Even one of his CPAP tubes popped out. And here is the kicker, his sats didn’t change at all. We would have never known he had tried to escape if we didn’t look in his bed. The blankets that normally cover his isolet to keep the lights out are going to be kept off so Cole is within eyesight at all times from now on. We can only imagine what kind of Heman he would have been if he made it to term!

“Wake me when this bath is over”

Posted in: About

Cole’s First Bath

February 27th, 2006 4 comments...sweet!

It was only a matter of time before I figured out how to post videos! Here is a few seconds of Cole’s first bath: Cole’s First Bath.

The movie clip requires Windows Media Player and a decent connection. If you can’t view it, I charge $50 an hour for tech support.

Posted in: About

Elvis?

February 26th, 2006 2 comments...sweet!

Cole: Okay mommy, who am I impersonating?
Mom: Elvis?
Cole: Thank you very much!

Posted in: About

Pics

February 25th, 2006 2 comments...sweet!

“Seriously Daddy, you are sooo funny”

“Seriously Mommy, you are sooo funny!”

Posted in: About

I’m not fat, I’m big boned

February 25th, 2006 1 comment...cool!

Just a quick update. I think we might be in what the doctors called the nothing happens zone. Which is great if you ask me. The babies are just feeding and growing. Perfect! Cole has developed some fluid on his lungs, for which they have started to give him another drug to deal with it. Paige is 3 pounds even today. Wow! Unforunately she has her dad’s bowels and might have lost a few ounces today! Cole is right behind her at 2 pounds 14 ounces. We aren’t supposed to be looking at their weight anymore on a daily basis, but on a weekly basis. It’s a hard habit to break! I think the goal is 1 ounce a day for weight gain. Tobie said she is eating lots of junk food to fatten her milk supply up for the babies. I’m not buying it. You might as well say I’m eating lots of junk food for the babies as well (but seriously, I am!).

Also we saw an article in the Arizona Republic today about the Robertses. They used to be in Cole’s pod when we first delivered. It seems like they are doing well all things considered (their rollercoaster ride is much bigger than ours if you can believe it). The title of the article is terrible, I really wish they would have put something a little less dire. If you guys are still reading our blog, “Hi! We’re pulling for you and your family”.

Oh and a side note about Blogger.com. What kind of blog software has a spell check that doesn’t recognize the word ‘blog’. Seriously, Google get your act together.

Posted in: About

Rub A Dub Dub

February 25th, 2006 3 comments...sweet!

Tobie here: Today was the first tub baths for both babies. Babies are supposed to (it’s true!) love tub baths because being in the water reminds them of the womb. They had been getting sponge baths before today because when they were on the ventilator tubes it was not feasible to give them tub baths. Cole’s bath was first. I watched and learned the art of a tub bath. Cole loved it! Paige was next…I think she liked it too..but her pleasure wasn’t as obvious as Cole’s or maybe I hadn’t mastered giving the tub bath yet. They are going to get tub baths every three days from now on and I’m so excited to keep giving them baths, especially since they seemed to enjoy it so much and there haven’t been too many pleasurable NICU experiences for them up to now. Also Paige seemed to breathe pretty good on her own for a while. While we were getting her situated back in her bed from the bath, we just had Oxygen in front of her face (not attached at all) and she was keeping a pretty good oxygen saturation. I think this bodes good for getting her off of CPAP sooner than later. If only Cole had the same lungs!

Other than the baths…today was another great day filled with growth. Paige 2 lbs, 15 oz (wow! I don’t know where she puts it!) and Cole was at 2 lbs, 13 oz. I had cuddle time with Paige and Eric held Cole. There was lots of love going to our babies!

Posted in: About

Sleep

February 24th, 2006 9 comments...sweet!

Posted in: About

The Circle Of 9 Is Complete

February 23rd, 2006 3 comments...sweet!

What a differrence a week makes. Last Thursday at this time we were headed to the NICU to give Cole moral support as he fought to stay on CPAP. Now tonight we are just chilling at home talking about how good the babies are doing.

We had our development meeting today with all the different *pists (all 7 of them). Apparently our kids rock! They are at least 1 week more advanced than your typical 24 weeker (who is now 30 weeks). They have already starting showing different mature actions that they wouldn’t expect from them for another week or so! In the coming weeks we are going to work with the babies to get bigger and stronger. Since we did have big babies (for 24 weekers mind you) who were in the top of the percentile for their birth weights, they want to get the kids back on course to their true corrected weight.

Cole’s number one priority is getting his tongue back in his mouth. Paige’s number one priority is to keep looking pretty. Apparently Paige responded perfectly to the steroids and they are very pleased with the way she is progressing. They don’t think Cole responded that well to the steroids, so more than likely if he has trouble again with breathing, they won’t be so quick to give him steroids again. There is also a very good chance that when Cole does come home, he will be on oxygen for 3 or 4 months based on his current respiratory progression. This seems more common in this day and age. I guess a few years back, babies born like ours more than likely would be on oyxgen all the way till kindergarten. The way Dr. Straylemyer put it: “We’ve come a long way in medicine”.

So all in all we were very pleased with the meeting. It helped reinforce the fact that our babies are getting better and there is an end in sight. It also helps with keeping our relationship with the staff open and direct. We have some excellent people on our team from the respiratory team (hopefully we will not be needed your services too often anymore) to our nurses. I’m sure the doctors do a good job too, but we don’t seem them that often because they are savings lives (the nerve, yes I’m kidding, we see them all the time). They have a good plan in place for tracking our progress. I’m glad we are in a very experienced NICU. They even think within a month we’ll be ready to go to the Thomas campus where they have nesting rooms. A nesting room is where we are able to actually move in with the babies and help get transitioned to our new lives. Suzan, did you do that? Has any of the other moms out there done that? Sound interesting to say the least.

To answer a few comments:
Depending on settings with your computer you will need to hit refresh to get the most current copy of the website.

Depending on the nurses that are on shift, we have certain nurses that are supposed to always be with our babies. We’ve pissed a few off because we had to choose one over another for our primary nurses. If it was up to us, we would pick multiple primary nurses per baby, but hey we don’t make the rules, we just live by them.

Posted in: About