Today, Ryan is 4 days old. That means he is 25 weeks, 2 days. They weren't kidding when they warned us that things happen minute by minute with these preemies. One moment things are one way, another moment, they're another.
I'm allowed to call the NICU 24/7 to get updates on how he's doing. I pretty much call every other time I pump, so that means once every 6 hours or so. You get to know the nurses pretty well pretty quickly. There are a lot of terms to learn. Each machine has a fancy name and an acronym to go with it. He's hooked up to so many things, it's difficult to keep track. Scott is very good at watching his stats and tracking the changes in his levels, heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, etc.
I need to write down where we started, up to where he is now. With changes happening every minute, it's hard to keep track but I'm going to try. I'm allowing extra writing time today because it is a recovery day for me and Sadie is with her Grandma. Once I'm recovered, and I have full access to my little girl, I will be spending much less time on the computer.
Day 1: Saturday
Ryan arrived via c-section. They promptly whisked him away to the 'resuscitation room' where they put him on a byphasic machine- this machine basically did the breathing for him. The nurse comp7ared it to a machine used on a preemie on Grey's Anatomy. It made his chest vibrate because they want to massage his lungs to help stretch them. (Earlier that week, I'd been given 2 injections of a steroid that accelerates the growth of the lungs, thank goodness they did that as a precaution because it had a few days to work, I think that gave him a bit of a leg-up). So he was stable. They put an IV in through his umbilical line, because there's not too many other places to put things on a little dude this small.
Day 2: Sunday
Ryan remained stable. He peed a lot, which is good, and his weight dropped from 760g to 6 hundred something (they have it all written down but at this point I wasn't really up for taking notes). This drop in weight was surprisingly a good thing because it showed that his systems were pumping fluid through and things were working properly (with the help of the byphasic machine, obviously). Oh, and I think he pooped that day... very exciting.
Day 3: Monday
He is still stable. Still on the machines, but I believe they started feeding him on this day. We enrolled in a clinical study that is going on at Sinai called DoMINO. (Will do a separate post on that later, but it has to do with looking at the differences between using donor breastmilk and formula in preemies). If I'm able to produce enough milk through pumping, they'll use my milk first and always but if I'm short of milk, or can't produce, this study gives him a chance at getting pasteurized donor breastmilk. Anyway, he tolerated is first feed well - it was milk from the study so we don't know if it was formula or breast milk (it's a blind study) because my milk hadn't come in. (It has now, so now he's getting my milk). At this point, a 'feed' was 1 cc of milk every 6 hours. That is not a lot of milk. He didn't tolerate the next feed - it just kinda sat in his stomach, and was pretty much suctioned out when they cleared his tube so they held the next feed. He tolerated the feed following that, and every one since then so everyone is happy.
Day 4: Tuesday
Lots of action today. It was my discharge day. I was freaking out. How am I going to be mom to Sadie and mom to Ryan at the same time. I still don't have that answer yet, but we're working on it. I also need to remember to recover from the c-section. Anyway. Ryan remained stable throughout the night - I visited him AS MUCH as I could that day, and pumped like a madwoman trying to get this darn milk to come in. It did. RELIEF. I'd read that if you can have something that smells like your baby that it may help. I took the little hat they'd put on him when he was born. (Preemies have extremely sensitive skin, so the NICU nurses don't like that they put hats on them in the labour ward). I sniffed that hat and sure enough, it smelled like my boy. One day I'll get around to putting pictures up, but basically the hat is the small enough to fit a small orange. Ok so feeding was going well. He was still stable and hadn't had any 'spells'. Spells are very common in preemies. It's kind of like apnea - they tend to just stop breathing - because they're tiny and they get tired, and because they forget... They started talking about next steps and because he'd been doing so well they were going to take him off his byphasic machine and try him with another machine that did less breathing for him. There are a number of factors that led up to this decision but one thing he was doing was that he could tolerate his machine being turned off for a few moments. As the doctors put it, he was telling them he was ready to try this new machine. I will have to do a separate post about "The Duct" and the head ultrasound because it's detailed and I want to get the explanations right.
Around 7 pm we said our goodbyes (I've made a policy of trying not to cry in the NICU - so far not-so-good... but I was able to hold his hand and tell him I'd see him tomorrow. Scott did the same. My eyes will never not be puffy again. I'm surprised I have any tears left. We came home. It's like getting out of jail - I didn't even know that spring had arrived because I've basically been in a hospital for more than a week. I'll need to slowly re-join society. Ryan did well overnight (I called almost every 3 hours).
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