Day 9, Sunday

Had a good day.  A long day, but a good day.  Papa and Nana came to meet their new grand-baby.  They were chauffeured by Auntie Kim (Scott's step sister).  Ryan had their hearts immediately and they agree that he's our little surfer dude.

Today was pretty routine in terms of what's going on with Ryan - they told us when we had him that preemies born at this point are prone to a number of complications (issues with lungs, heart, and brain).  I keep procrastinating posting details on this kind of stuff, a) because it sounds kind of scary and b) because the issues he's having aren't effecting his day to day, complications from these things may arise later as he grows, or there may be nothing.

Every day, they run routine blood work on him, and his white blood cells were high, and his platelets were low (did I say that yesterday?) Anyway, they want to rule out infection, and the doctors we talked to today said he's definitely not acting like a baby with an infection so that's good. They did a lumbar puncture to check his spinal fluid (ouch, that was a tough one to swallow but again, I was reassured that it's very routine for these little dudes).  Not much to report today, other than everyone said he looks good, strong, and they have a good feeling about him.

I will go to bed happy that he had a good day, but also with the knot in my stomach that after every up, there's a down.... All the nurses say not to think like that, and one day I'll learn how to, just not yet.  I haven't called to check in yet - I usually call twice during the night.

Oh ya, they put him on a new ventilator, it is still doing a lot of work for him, but he's got some extra air pockets in his lungs and this has a gentle shake in order to get some of the extra air out.  (That is the dumbed down version... it's much more complicated than that, but that's pretty much my capacity for information at this point.  They said he'll be on it for at least a few more days.