Wow, 17 days in the NICU already. We figured out that we can have my laptop in the NICU, so I'm writing this blog from Aidan's bedside watching him do great at the moment on room air (no supplemental oxygen), and with his oxygen saturation level in the high 90s. I need to finish and publish this quickly before anything changes :)
The doctors and nurses keep saying Aidan is doing wonderfully, and I keep hearing from everyone that he is doing much better than you would expect for his gestational age (31 weeks on Friday), his size, and the fact that he was in a restricted growth environment and without fluid for 6 weeks before birth.
Even though I keep hearing that he is doing great, it's hard to watch when Aidan does have trouble. Since he is so small, it doesn't take much to disrupt his delecate body. Just 20 minutes ago right when we arrived, Aidan was positioned on his stomach, and he was starting to get very fussy. The nurse turned him over to his back. But, he had already got himself worked up. Whenever this happens, first Aidan's heart rate shoots up to 180-190 beats per minute, then in his anger, he forgets to breath deeply. In this condition, he burns through the oxygen in his blood very quickly so his blood oxygen starts to crash. When it falls below 80% a soft alarm goes off, and yellow lights on the monitor flash. The nurses prefer to wait and see if Aidan will pull himself out of trouble, and not overreact by cranking up his supplemental oxygen too high. But sometimes when Aidan is agitated enough, the oxygen continues to fall below 70%, then at 65% a loud alarm sounds and red lights flash on the monitor. At this level, Aidan starts to lose his color, first turning pale and then grayish. At this point, the nurses crank up Aidan's oxygen to 30-40% (room air is 21%), and then we all wait for him to recover. We've seen this happen 4-5 times in the last couple weeks, and it's not fun. It doesn't take much to trigger an oxygen crash. It's happened to Denyse and I while just taking too long to change Aidan's diaper.
The other type of spell Aidan sometimes has is with his heart rate. Out of nowhere, his heart rate suddenly slows from its normal 140-170 beats per minute, to below 100 beats per minute. Below 100, the loud alarm sounds and red lights flash. Then a nurse runs over to Aidan and we all wait for him to recover. So far, Aidan has recovered quickly every time without intervention. I asked Dr Kaempf about these a few days ago. He is not concerned and said that nearly all premies have these. Aidan has very few of these compared to most babies, and he is recovering quickly on his own. He said some babies have literally hundreds of these heart spells and require stimulation of some kind to recover.
Even though we know Aidan is doing really well, It's hard to watch when this it happens, I do look around the NICU and see many babies that are not doing as well as Aidan with many more alarms sounding, so I am very thankful he is doing so well.
Well, I'm done with the posting and Aidan is still on room air, his heart rate is 159, and his oxygen is 99%. Great job Aidan!
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