I asked the doctor about an "event" that happened last night while we were visiting Aidan. About 9:30pm, Denyse and I had the curtains drawn and were privately sitting with Aidan and reading, not watching any of the monitors. Suddenly the monitor alarm went off. I looked up just in time to see his heart rate at 70 bpm. (They have the the heart rate alarm set to trigger below 100 bpm). The nurse jumped up and came in, but in less than a second, the rate quickly climbed to 140 bmp, and then back to Aidan's normal rate of 160 bpm. In 8 days, we had never seen anything abnormal with Aidan's heart rate, so I questioned if what I saw was actually real and thought it was some kind of hiccup in the monitor leads. Dr Freitag explained that what I saw was most likely real, and that this is very common in preterm babies. He said that this usually self-corrects and is nothing to worry about. In Aidan's case, it corrected almost too quickly to see.
We also discussed Aidan's digestion, which has been slow to take off. We talked about some of the problems preterm babies can have with their intestines, especially in cases where the baby spent extended time without much amniotic fluid. I learned that the meconium in the intestines is actually digested amniotic fluid. One of the worries is that the intestines have sort of atrophied, and become thin and weak. It's way too early to worry about something like this, but it's really hard not to worry about what can go wrong.
Aidan's bilirubin count dramatically improved (down from 6.7 to 3.8), and he is again off the blue light!! Maybe this time it will be for good.
Aidan is no longer wrapped in plastic, but is in a soft blanket. The nurse told us his sodium levels have been very good for several days. High sodium is caused by too much moisture evaporation. This is why they had been wrapping Aidan in plastic. He also no longer needs to have the vaseline-like Aquaphor spread all over his skin to keep him moist.
It was a little bit nerve-wracking this morning. Aidan had 2 more heart-rate spells 30 minutes apart, right before our eyes. He was laying on his stomach and the nurse moved him to his back after the second one. Plus, the CPAP was acting up causing his oxygen saturation levels to keep flirting with near-alarm levels, and causing the nurse to bump up his oxygen a couple percent. Watching the monitors this morning was like watching a stock market ticker on a bad stock that you want to sell; you have a number in mind that you want it to reach, but every time it starts going up and you get some hope, it falls right back down.
Denyse held Aidan for over 3 hours today! It's much easier to hold Aidan when he doesn't need to spend time under the blue light.
They gave Aidan a sponge bath today.
He now weighs 1 lb 14.5 oz, just 0.1 oz short of his birth weight!!!
This evening went very well with Aidan. His digestion is moving much better (2 dirty diapers), and his oxygen saturation levels were very stable and very high 95+. When we tucked him in and left, he was at 100.
This afternoon was stressful, but today ended very well.
1 comment:
Bet you never thought you would be excited about dirty diapers. You'll have the chance to change over a thousand by the time Aidan is potty trained. Love those big eyes. Love, Mom
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