Owen is moving right along. He hasn't had any strong pain meds since 1:45 am today. They are still giving him tylenol, and he seems pretty content. This evening he was very awake and engaged in interaction with us. He was looking around, watching people move around in the hallway, listening to music, and watching his mobile.
They started using the g tube today. He's on continuous feeds with breastmilk only as of now. Slowly they will build up the amounts and shorten the time frame. Then they will assess needs with combining the formula again. Next they'll begin the bottle feedings. He's done with the IV. They removed it at 10pm tonight.
He's maintaining weight well. He actually gained yesterday, but that was due to the fluids. Today he's just a tad more than the day before. Still around 6 lbs and 12 oz.
The nurse prac said today that if he keeps progressing this well, we'll talk about discharge planning next week. We're so excited. Hoping and praying he comes home soon!
Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.

Owen is recovering well so far. He came back to his room with no ventilator attached! Our little guy wants nothing more to do with that device. He does have a cannula with an oxygen flow of .5 to help him breathe as long as he needs it. They are working to manage his pain. They watch his heartrate and his blood pressure to determine his pain level. When they're up, they give him some pain meds. Hopefully he'll need less and less. He looked comfortable when we left today. All of his blood levels were good. He'll be on IV fluids for a day or two until he recovers and they can start using the g tube.
Last night when they weighed him, he was at 6lbs and 12oz! He also had an eye test yesterday morning. His ROP condition has regressed so much that he will not have another exam for 6 months! That's great news. We're so happy that things went well today. Hopefully our sweet Owen will be coming home before too long. Please keep him in your prayers.

Surgery Success!!

Surgery went great today. They were able to complete everything laparoscopically so he should have minimal scarring. He also did well enough through surgery that they should be able to take him off the ventilator before returning him to his room. Owen's in a recovery room for about an hour to make sure he's breathing okay. So we're just waiting for our strong little guy to come back to us. We'll keep posting updates about his recovery. Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts coming our way. It helped him through a successful surgery. He should wake up and finally not have anything taped to his face! He'll be a much happier baby.

Surgery Tomorrow

Owen will have surgery tomorrow afternoon around 12:30. He is having his last meal right now before he goes on IV fluids for a while. He already has the IV in his head. It's been a long time since he's had one of those, but he's handling it well. The surgery should take a couple of hours tomorrow and we will post something on the blog as soon as we get word about how everything went. We hope that the surgery will be smooth and that he can get off the ventilator soon after surgery and have a quick recovery. We're so nervous for our little man. He is 6 pounds and 12 ounces. He is growing so much. Can't wait until he's home!

We had our care meeting Friday and it went a little differently than we anticipated. The doctors feel like Owen's reflux issues are severe enough to where he would benefit from having a g tube inserted in his stomach for feeding. This would allow his throat to heal and allow him to come home a lot sooner. They stressed the importance of a baby his age being home to improve his development and that if we did the surgery, he could come home as soon as two weeks after the procedure. This is a big decision to put Owen through a surgery like this, but the alternative is an indefinite stay in the hospital.

We're supposed to think about the surgery option over this weekend and let them know tomorrow what we have decided. Owen is doing a little better the last couple of days. He has been a lot more comfortable since being off the Reglan and he has been taken off his last diuretic too. He isn't doing any bottle feeding over the weekend because the speech therapists want to be there to assess him while feeding. We'll try to update again soon and share what we decide about surgery and when that will be. Thanks for all your support!!

 He's come a long way!!

Owen is moving right along. He is 6lbs and 3 oz!! He has moved up again on his feeding amounts. He continues to make progress and then have setbacks with the bottle feeding and the spit ups. He had to have a gastric emptying scan to check out the reflux condition. They're trying some different things and working on getting him to advance with his feeding.

We have the meeting this friday at 2pm. We get to find out the specific criteria for going home! Please keep us in your prayers.

Owen Masters a Whole Bottle!!

This is Owen yesterday when we had a hard time getting him to calm down. He wouldn't take his pacifier, but eventually found his thumb. It was the first time we've seen him actually suck his thumb for a good amount of time. And then we put him in a little vibrating swing and he was really interested in the blinking lights and seemed to like the vibration.

In another first, today he took an entire feeding from a bottle. He is fed every three hours and gets 44ml. He had previously only managed to get 25ml from a bottle. So he made a big jump today. We're so proud of him.

He weighs 5lbs and 14oz. They increased his feedings to 44ml today from 40. They also decreased the time of his feedings down to an hour and a half from 2 hours. He's off the caffeine as of today, and still maintaining well without the breathing treatments... He keeps moving in the right direction.

 The other promising news is that they want to get a meeting scheduled to talk about the criteria for going home. Hopefully we'll be able to get that scheduled for Friday afternoon.
Thanks for all the prayers! We're so happy things are looking so well for our little guy :)

Our sweet little Owen had a swallow study and an upper GI today. The upper GI was normal, but the swallow study showed some aspiration. He will have to have a thicker feeding. They're going to add rice cereal and they're going to increase the bottle feeding to two times per day. We're going to work on building up his skills and his muscle development.
The nurse prac said this is what we're waiting on to send him home. Looks like as soon as he gets the feeding down, it'll be time for homecoming. Can't wait!!
He's still doing well without the breathing treatments. He only desats when he's upset; like when he's getting his diaper changed for example. Monday, the plan is to discontinue the caffeine or the diuretic.
He continues to grow....
We're getting closer and closer. Praying all goes well and its not too much longer.

Owen weighs 5 lbs and 11 oz. They're going to do a swallow study tomorrow to make sure he's not aspirating. He went up again today to 30ml while feeding with the speech therapist. He seems to be doing really well with his sucking and swallowing. No spit ups. But they still want to be sure. 

The oxygen setup is gone. It was at his bedside on standby, but they've moved it away. They're talking about discontinuing his medications for breathing and lung development because he continues to do so well. They've stopped the breathing treatments to start. They'll monitor and make sure he's good without them. Then they'll move on to the diuretic or the caffeine. The last to go will be the steroid. 

Owen is doing well with bottle feeding. He started at 10 ml, and has gone up everyday. He's at 25 ml as of yesterday. The speech therapist will work with him today to make sure he's on the right track. 

He weighs 5.67 lbs. He's 17 inches long now.   

  

Owen did well again with bottle feeding yesterday. He went up from 10 to 15 ml. It was great watching him do it! He was so coordinated with his sucking and his stopping to breathe. The nurse said some babies get so worked up that they forget to do that. He had nice burps too.
Owen weighs 5 and a half pounds. He's moved in to the newborn size clothes. He's outgrown the preemie size! They did say the more he bottle feeds, he may lose some weight. He's not used to doing any work to eat. That's why they're very slow to start.
We did get to meet with the OT. She was great, and had all good things to say about Owen's development. She explained that his movements and reflexes were developing in the right grouping. He's made great progress in two weeks being off the ventilator. When she initiates his movements, he responds appropriately. His muscle tone is good; not too tense, not too floppy. And he's good at letting everyone know when he's uncomfortable or unhappy, he's not passive, and we love that. All good news! -She also said he had the cutest smile on the unit!
We'll add pictures tonight!

Million Dollar Baby!!! (So Far)

Owen is once again trying to take matters into his own hands, literally. He decided that he was done with his oxygen yesterday and pulled the nasal cannula out of his nose. He was doing so well that the nurses and doctors decided to leave it out and see how he does. Well now he's on day two without oxygen support and he's doing really well! And in even bigger news he successfully took 10 cc's of his milk from a bottle tonight. They said they may try the same amount tomorrow, but may do it at two different feedings if he handles it well. He's made a lot of big steps in just a couple days. I think he's trying to impress his Mom for Mother's Day. Pretty sweet gift if I say so myself.

Owen's first bottle. He did really well. The nurse said he knew just what he was doing. He got a little messy, but that's normal. He swallowed well. No spit ups. No desats. He burped nicely.

We're so excited!!

Owen had a pretty good day today. He's been spitting up more since his last feeding increase to 45 ml. They took it back down to 40ml to see if that's the problem. The other issue however for today, is that they ran out of breastmilk and he was getting formula only. We made a second trip up there this evening to get him his breastmilk. We do have a whole deep freezer full, for goodness sake. We also have a new plan so that doesn't happen again.

Owen received less in his feedings today. Plus he spit a lot of it up. But he still gained weight. He's almost 5 and a half pounds.

He moved down on his flow today too! He's at 2!! If he does well, that means we get to move off the high flow cannula, and we get to work toward bottle feeding and then breast feeding. 

Owen had a good day! They moved him back down again on his flow to 2.5. He kept pulling out the cannula and breathing fine without it. They would go in randomly to check on him and it would be on top of his nose. If he can breathe without it completely for indefinite amounts of time, they figured he could be moved down a bit. It may have to be turned up during assessments and such. He does not like being messed with.
His eye exam went well today. The ROP condition is still regressing. Not another test for 2 weeks. They've increased his feedings to 45 ml and adjusted all his medications based on his growth. He's at 5.16 lbs.
When we went to see him this evening, he looked so good! He was resting well and tolerated his assessment well. His color looked good. His skin looked and smelled very nice, and his little cheeks look a little chubby. We got to see several smiles and were even able to catch a few in pictures.

Owen's new area in the hospital is very nice. Comfortable, spacious, and peaceful. He gets a lot more attention.
He hit the 5 lb mark! He weighs just over 5 lbs.

Owen is doing well today. No changes in his care. He was moved to a new area last night. The nurse practitioner said they like to call it "a suite". I'm anxious to see what its like today. The charge nurse said they wanted him to be in a quieter area. We're looking forward to that. 

Owen had a little episode last night with his breathing. He went down pretty low on his sats. He had been moved down to 2.5 on the flow yesterday. We were so excited. They were talking to us about when he gets to 2, its time to have the speech therapist check him out and see if he's ready for bottle feeding. Well we'll get there, but for now, he's back on 3. He did well through the night on 2.5; no more episodes. But he was irritable and having to work too hard to breathe.
They're working on helping him grow. His feedings are increased to 40 ml. Hopefully with a little growth, he'll be ready to move down again.

He finally got to meet his PawPaw!

 Owen's wardrobe is expanding. He now has a "daytime outfit" as they say. We've never seen him in little pants. He's even moved up to sleepers with zippers instead of snaps only.

 He loves his paci. Its almost as big as his face. But he loves it!

He keeps moving along. Today his gases were good again and they moved the flow down to 3. They say that sometimes when they move the flow down, they have to increase the oxygen level. But so far they haven't had to do that with him. His oxygen remains at the room level.

He's doing better with his spit ups.

He's not gaining any weight lately, but he's not losing, and that's a big deal because he's using more energy, burning more calories being off the ventilator.

We're so happy he's doing so well! Hoping it continues. We want to bring our baby home soon!!