September 3, 2008: Day 3

Aidan's 3rd day started with nervous excitement. At 10am, they removed the ventilator to see if he could sustain his oxygen levels with only CPAP.



CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Air Pressure. The machine bubbles air into Aidan's nose, pushing pressure slightly to keep his lungs expanded. Without this, Aidan would very quickly get tired, and start to breath more and more shallowly until his blood oxygen level would fall.

Removing the ventilator was a critical moment for Aidan. We arrived at the NICU just as they were removing the breathing tube, and replaced it with the CPAP hat. The nurse rubbed Aidan's chest and quietly talked to him, "Breathe Aidan, come on you can do it." She told us the first 5 to 10 minutes would tell us if he was ready to be off the ventilator.

Some of Aidan's first breaths on his own:



5 minutes passed, and Aidan's oxygen saturation was still good. We anxiously waited and watched the monitors for another 5 minutes...the nurse warned us that many babies get tired, and need to go back on the ventilator.

Aidan made it!!! And later that day, they lowered the oxygen to only 24 percent, just 3% above room air.





I will never forget the sight of these NICU monitors...




Before we arrived, they did a head sonogram on Aidan to look for brain hemorrhaging. Head bleeding is not uncommon in premature babies, due to oxygen deficiencies during birth. We were very worried about this, especially with the way the hours just before his birth went, and how blue he was when he was born. The nurse said that it usually took a while to get the result back. But a few minutes later, someone dropped off a short 1-page report to the nurse. It said all head sonogram results were normal!! This was a huge relief, to say the least.

Here's a picture of the CPAP machine (with his old ventilator in the background):



...and Aidan wrapped snugly in his plastic:



Here Denyse and the nurse change a diaper:



That evening, my dad and Bev stopped by to see Aidan:



Denyse applies Aquaphor, vasaline-like gel that keeps Aidan's skin from drying out and controls the moisture evaporation so he doesn't get high sodium levels:



Nurse Uwen and the RT work on Aidan:



Day 3 was a very exciting, and very good day for Aidan. He had crossed some very big hurdles-Now breathing on his own (with some help), and the head scan was normal. PLUS, Denyse was discharged from the hospital, and got to go outside for the first time in 34 days!

It was a very good day.