Happy Thanksgiving, and wonderful news!

First, I'd like to wish all of our family and friends a Happy Thanksgiving. We certainly have a lot to be thankful for this year!

With Aidan's delicate condition, and since we have just entered cold and flu season, we are not supposed to take Aidan out of the house except for doctor appointments, and we are supposed to limit the number of people he sees. We are paranoid about Aidan catching a cold, which would be really rough on him with his immature lungs.

So we had a very small get together for Thanksgiving this year. We had Aidan's brother Andrew, and Aidan's grandparents Marshall and Charlotte. Charlotte was nice enough to cook us a very nice Thanksgiving dinner.







On Wednesday, Aidan's pediatrician suggested it was time to try Aidan without oxygen. So Wednesday from 11am - 11pm, we did this. We were too scared to leave Aidan off oxygen all night, and we didn't want to stay up in shifts watching him, so we put him back on the oxygen for the night.

On Thanksgiving morning, we again removed the oxygen. We kept a close eye on Aidan all day, watching for a change in his skin color. We usually look for a change in the color of his lips. In the NICU, when Aidan would de-saturate into the 60s (or worse), Aidan's lips would first turn from pink to pale, then grey, and then blue. All day on Thursday, we never noticed any change in color, so we think he did really well.

At bed time, we needed to decide if we would put Aidan back on the oxygen, or take the nervous step to keep Aidan off the oxygen for a full night. On Friday morning, Aidan had another pediatrician appointment, so if we could make it through the night, we could test him with a pulse oximeter in the morning after he had been off oxygen for a full 24 hours. That would tell us a lot about what he is capable of. If we put him back on oxygen for the night, he would only be off oxygen for a couple hours and the oximetry test to me wouldn't mean as much.

So we decided now was the time to test Aidan, and we would leave him off oxygen for the night; so we set the alarm clock to wake us up every 1.5 to 2 hours to check on him. We did still have him on the heart and apnea monitor, but we're not sure how bad his blood oxygen would need to get to actually set off one of these alarms, so we still wanted to check his skin color often throughout the night.

Aidan made it through the night just fine. He actually woke us up every 1 - 2 hours to eat, which was before the alarm clock ever went off.

So we went to the pediatrician appointment at 9:30am today for Aidan's second RSV vaccine. Before the shot, we hooked Aidan up to the pulse oximeter to see how he was doing. The very first reading was 98%!! This was huge news, and means that 9:30am on Thanksgiving could be the last time Aidan is on supplemental oxygen!

On November 1st when we left the NICU, Dr Kaempf told us that he expected Aidan to need oxygen for 4-6 weeks. Today is 1 day short of 4 weeks. If any of the nurses from the NICU reads this, please let Dr Kaempf know Aidan has made it off oxygen.

So tonight, we'll remove the TenderGrip tape from his face since Aidan doesn't need the cannula anymore!!

No more oxygen!! (at least, for part of the time)

Put November 26, 2008 in the book of important dates. Today, we started trying Aidan without oxygen.

We took Aidan to the pediatrician for his 2-month "well baby" checkup (aka 2-month vaccines :(). While we were there, we did another oximetry test where we took Aidan off the oxygen and monitored his blood oxygen with a pulse oximeter. Aidan again showed improvement since the last time 2 weeks ago. Aidan was really hungry, and we let him fuss to see how he would hold up. He did really well. His blood oxygen only dipped below 90% a couple times, and it very quickly popped back up above 95% when he calmed down a little. And no matter how much he cried, he never dipped below 85%. After this the doctor said, "Well, I think it might be time to take him off the oxygen."

So for 12 hours today, Aidan was without supplemental oxygen! We were not comfortable to go without oxygen overnight while we sleep, so we put it back on for the night. On Friday we need to go back to the pediatrician for a followup RSV vaccine, and we will check to see if Aidan is still doing well with the pulse oximeter.

Pictures from the last few days.

Check out these lungs...



...and see he's smart enough to put in his own binky. Aidan with his heart monitor belt:




Heading off to the pediatrician:



Look, no cannula!!

Happy Birthday Aidan!!

In an alternate universe somewhere, where whatever lead to Denyse's water breaking didn't happen, and Aidan stayed cozily inside for the duration, Aidan Matthew Stawicki was born today.

It's a Boy!!
Aidan Matthew Stawicki
[Supposed to be] Born November 21, 2008
Weight: 3150 grams - 6 pounds 15.1 ounces
Length: 47 cm - 18.5 inches
Head: 34 cm - 13.4 inches

I received a "Boys, birth to 36 months" growth chart so we can track how Aidan is progressing in weight gain, length and head size compared to normal term babies. We will update the chart monthly. Here is how Aidan matches up with "regular" babies.

Weight: 25th percentile
Length: 15th percentile
Head: 20th percentile
Weight:Length Ratio: 90th percentile (I didn't make this metric up, honest))

Not too bad considering he lost 10-14 days in growth, being born so early, and then had to play catch-up the whole time. So I read this to mean he is a little short for his weight, or heavy for his length. But other than that, he is pretty proportional.

So Aidan now has a positive corrected age, and is officially a "newborn", rather than a preemie.

Some pictures of the last week of Aidan as a preemie:



Look! He's getting blond hair:





Aidan a little fussy (believe me, he gets way louder than this...):



Isn't that cute, he holds his own bottle (with some help):









Napping after play time:







Aidan will lay there and play with the animals for 30 minutes, when he's in a good mood.

On Thursday, the Inman's were kind enough to bring us spaghetti dinner. Thanks Mary, thanks Dave!

No more ROP!

Back on October 14th, the ophthalmologist in the NICU reported that he could see mild stage 1 ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity) in Aidan's eyes. This was upsetting since ROP is one of the big fears for premature babies, and can lead to serious vision problems. At the next check on October 29th, the ROP was not any worse, and was actually starting to go away.

Today, we took Aidan in to the ophthalmologist, and ...

THE ROP IS GONE!

Only one more week until Aidan's original due date

It's really wild to think that if Denyse's water hadn't broke in July, Aidan still may not even be born yet. Next Friday 11/21, is Aidan's original due date. Yesterday at the pediatrician, Aidan weighed 6 lbs 8.5 oz. It's hard to imagine him still being inside; Denyse would have been huge! Next Friday, Aidan will have a corrected age of 0!

Yesterday morning we took Aidan to the pediatrician for another oximetry test. His lungs have definitely improved. He only dipped below 90% a couple times, and didn't drop below 85 at all while he was off the oxygen. After the test, we (with the pediatrician) decided to no longer increase Aidan's oxygen to 50 ml for feedings and car rides, and just leave him at 25 ml all the time. A first step towards weaning him from the home oxygen!

Some pictures and videos of the last few days...

Aidan is wearing a monitor belt around his chest with the heart monitor leads on it. This makes him look really stocky like a miniature football player:



And at times, he looks like John Goodman:



Play this, and you'll see I'm right.



Tummy time!



OR, "These lights are freaking me out, man!" You decide which:



Denyse walked around today with Aidan in a Moby Wrap:







So I had to try:





In the last couple days, Aidan appears to be interacting with his surroundings for the first time. Here is the first time we saw him play.



Or maybe he is just flailing his arms around and they accidentally hit his toys.

More pictures from the last few days:

Running a NICU from your house

At times if feels like we are running a mini-NICU from our house. It will be so nice when Aidan doesn't need to be on oxygen any more.

First, we have the main oxygen tank in the middle of the downstairs family room:



This tank has a 25 foot hose, so the idea is that we can walk Aidan around anywhere within 25 feet of the tank. We set Aidan's oxygen flow to 25 ml/minute:



25 ml/minute is a very slow flow, and you can't hear or feel it flowing. If you put the end of the cannula into a glass of water, the air barely bubbles out into the water. The Respiratory Therapist in the NICU showed us how to prime the line with oxygen before connecting up Aidan, so that there is actually oxygen in the tube. I think if you didn't do this, it could be several minutes before concentrated oxygen would actually make it to the end of the 25 foot tube and into Aidan's nose. The RT also showed us how to correctly shut off the tank, and bleed out the pressure. If you just shut off the tank valve, and walked away, the gauges look as if the tank is still on, and will look this way for quite a while, because the flow is set so slowly, the air pressure in the regulator takes several minutes to drain. You could then accidentally think the valve is open, and hook Aidan back up, only to have the oxygen stop flowing several minutes later.

When Aidan eats, or gets really fussy, we change the oxygen flow up to 50 ml/minute.

When we need to take Aidan to an appointment, or at night when we want to go upstairs, we switch Aidan to a portable oxygen tank:



Because Aidan is on oxygen, they also sent us home with a heart and apnea monitor:



We are supposed to write down on a log sheet every time the alarm goes off. The monitor has cool blinky lights.



When Aidan's heart rate drops below 80 or above 200 beats per minute, the monitor alarms, beeping one time per second until his heart rate corrects itself. These alarms have sounded several times, usually a couple times a day when Aidan is fussy, or trying to poop.

The worse alarm is if the leads come loose. This is a very loud shriek:



Luckily, this has not happened in the middle of the night since we would jump through the ceiling.

The worse part about all of this is that Aidan is tethered to the tank and monitors, and it's difficult to move him around:



Our wired baby:



It will be really nice when Aidan can be off these cables.

Week 38 & 6 Pounds!!

Aidan reached the 6 pound milestone on Saturday!!



2762 grams (6 lbs 1.5 oz).

Tuesday 9/23 - 2 1/2 pounds
Sunday 9/28 - 3 pounds
Sunday 10/5 - 3 1/2 pounds
Sunday 10/12 - 4 pounds
Sunday 10/19 - 4 1/2 pounds
Monday 10/27 - 5 pounds
Sunday 11/2 - 5 1/2 pounds
Saturday 11/8 - 6 pounds

Aidan has been amazingly consistent over the last 7 weeks.

We were pleasantly surprised that Aidan did hit 6 pounds today. For the last few days up until last night, Aidan's been eating a lot, and seemed hungry all the time. We weighed him last night, and he just missed 6 pounds at 5 lbs 15.6 oz (2710 grams). But last night starting at 10pm, Aidan started getting really fussy, and when we tried to feed him, he would grunt and groan, and then either spit the milk back out, or start choking and coughing on the milk. After several tries, he would eventually eat 10-20 ml, and then get tired and fall asleep. This went on all night, every couple of hours. We were starting to worry that something was wrong.

Thinking about what we had changed, we realized that we had switched Aidan temporarily to frozen milk at 10pm. This was milk that we brought home from the NICU. When we switched Aidan back to fresh milk, and he was much happier again. I guess Aidan was telling us "What is this! Give me the good stuff!"

Pictures from the last couple days...

Aidan's first bath at home:



Nap time. Gizmo is back with us now. Since early August, Gizmo has been with Grandma Smith. He's actually been a pretty good dog, much better than we were expecting since he suffers from only-child syndrome, so we were expecting him to really act out with Aidan here.









Aidan reached 38 weeks on Friday, so he is just under 2 weeks until his original due date. This means Aidan could be close to 7 pounds by his due date, which I think is pretty amazing.

Aidan's first days home

Denyse and I have now survived 4 days on our own with Aidan. He was very fussy the first night, and we got very little sleep. Dr Kaempf told us it can take up to 2 weeks for NICU babies to fully settle in at home. The NICU is a very noisy and bright place (24/7), very different from home.

Thinking back to Saturday, it was very emotional leaving the hospital for both of us. 62 days visiting Aidan in the NICU, 93 straight days at the hospital for Denyse and I, 106 days of roller coaster emotions since Denyse's water broke. Everything we went through to get to that point, going all the way back over the last 3-4 years, came back to us all at once while we were leaving.

We have been very busy since Saturday. Aidan has taken his first 2 road trips (back to the hospital of all places...) for a Postpartum Center appointment, and for his first visit to the pediatrician. It take 2 people to transport Aidan, with him in his car seat, a diaper bag, his portable oxygen tank, and his heart/apnea monitor. Back a month ago, we couldn't wait until we had a "wireless baby", without all the tubes and cables on him. Well, we didn't quite get a wireless baby yet, but at least now he's portable.

Some pictures of our first few days.















Gotta love the hat!



And this one too.



Aidan's first trip to the Pediatrician:







During the visit, we ran an oximetry test on Aidan. We put a pulse oximeter on him and removed his oxygen. Then the doctor left Denyse and I to record what his saturation levels did over the next 30 minutes. We wanted to simulate normal activity, so rather than let Aidan just lay there, we did normal stuff like hold, feed and burp him.

His levels started at 98. At first he stayed mostly in the 90s. He dipped into the low 80s 2 times during burping, and fussing from gas, and both times he recovered on his own to the low 90s. Once when he got the hiccups, and got especially fussy, he dipped to 75. I started to get nervous when this happened and began to prepare to turn his oxygen back on. We'd seen plenty of bad desaturations in the NICU. But this time he also recovered on his own back to 90. After this, he bounced between 85 and 93 for the last 10 minutes of the test.

Aidan did pretty well, and the doctor now has a good baseline for him. I was impressed. If we would have tried this 2-3 weeks ago, Aidan would have spiraled into the 60s or 50s and would never have recovered without extra oxygen. He definitely still needs a little extra oxygen, but he continues to improve.

Burp time...



Yes this is the same scale as they had in the NICU.



They rent these at the Postpartum Center. We decided it would be helpful to know how much Aidan eats during breast feeding. And we can still weigh him when we want to make sure he is getting enough calories and is still growing. On Wednesday, Aidan is 2604 grams (5 lbs 11.8 oz). He's well on his way to making it to 6 pounds by Sunday, which keeps him on the same growth rate as before he left the hospital.

What's that on the scale...



Yes Lee, I did zero-out the scale correctly, and set this diaper back on the scale *after* the weight was recorded. Watching the nurses in the NICU trained us well :)

Grandma Smith got to hold Aidan for the very first time today.



It's been fun and tiring, and the time flies by for us now.