2 Months Old!

Today, December 5, 2011, Mr. Finn Weaver is officially 2 months old!  WOW!  So hard to believe!  He is weighing in at 4 pounds 6 ounces, and had begun to bottle feed.  Never in a million years did I think I would  have 4 children, let alone a micro-preemie with a very long NICU stay, but, here we are!  And, as you can tell from the picture, it was time to COWBOY UP this weekend and yell ORANGE POWER as loud as we could, and Finn was in on the action as well.  So, not only do I have 4 children, my Oklahoma State University Cowboys are Big 12 Football CHAMPIONS!  What an amazing weekend!  Along with all of that, Britt and I are celebrating the 6^th anniversary of our engagement!  Best 6 years of my life.  SO GLAD God led him to me, and that I said “YES!”

Since Finn is off CPAP, he is MUCH easier to “get to,” and we can hold him much easier now.  That means, other family members can get in on the action, too!  Unfortunately, my mom is struggling through a cold, and the Big Girls were off on adventures with their Other Dad, so that left Big Brother.  And boy, was he excited!  And so good at it! And just completely precious.  Jake sang songs to Finn, talked to him, and just LOVED on him.  It was adorable!  He got to hold Finn twice on Saturday and once on Sunday, and he was (almost) as excited as Christmas morning!  I think he is going to be an EXCELLENT big brother – even though he refuses to change diapers!  ;)

When the doctor had called on Friday, she had told us that the next time we were there, we would probably be able to attempt a bottle feeding.  Unfortunately on Saturday, Finn was still tachypneic (breathing too fast), so they decided to let him have another day of getting used to breathing on his own before we tried.  While we were there for the first night shift hands on, we told our nurse that if he was showing signed of readiness, they were more than welcome to try him with a bottle!  We had been told earlier in the week they would not do the first bottle without me there, and I wanted them to know I didn’t want to be the reason he was not home by Christmas!  With me so far away, and the weather getting iffy, to go ahead!  So, Finn had his first bottle at 2 am on Sunday morning!  She said he drank some of it, but then got sleepy so she finished it through his tube.  We got there Sunday afternoon in time to try again at the 2pm feeding.  He was a bit slow, but he finished the required feeding amount in just over 30 minutes.  They only want them to try for 30 minutes, but he had just a bit left, so we got to finish.  Then, I got to try again at the 5:00 feeding.  HOLY COW!  He sucked the entire bottle dry in 20 minutes!  The nurse came back in to check on us, and she was SHOCKED!  So was I!  She said there were 5 extra cc’s in the bottle, too!  WOW!  GREAT job, Finn!

We learned that overnight they attempted one more bottle, but he was pretty tired, so they were going to finish out the night with gavage feeds to let him rest.  He HAD to be tired!  He worked so hard for Mommy yesterday!  He got his hearing checked on Saturday, and one ear failed, but that is pretty typical at this point and he will get checked again before we go home.  The eye doctor was also in on Sunday, and he is showing signs of mild ROP, but they will also keep monitoring that.  And, since he is 2 months old today, they will start with his immunizations!  He gets 3 shots over the next 3 days – with Tylenol and lots of love.  Poor little guy!  But, he’s shown himself to be quite a trooper, and I know he will do fine.  So, we need him to continue to do well with bottle feeding and get more consistent, and we are also starting to wean the percentage of oxygen that he gets through the nasal cannula.  Those are the things we need to have happened to get him home for Christmas!  Keep up the good work, Finn!

Wheels Keep Turning

I can’t believe I have let a whole week go by since I last blogged!  Finn is still taking baby steps forward.  And I do mean baby steps!  Very small steps.  Every day!  He seems to gain weight in spurts!  He’ll gain 2 ounces in 24 hours, then maintain that weight for 2 days! LOL!  As of last night, he is up to 3 pounds 8 ounces!  4 ounces from doubling his birth weight!  And the respirator is almost the same story.  We were told once we got the rate down to 10 and he tolerated it, we would get off of it.  Well, it has been at a rate of 10 for 3 days now, and he still has it.  Because, yesterday, they had to turn the pressure up. We were really ready for him to be done with that form of breathing support this weekend.  It was 2 Saturdays ago that the Doctor said we would be off in 2 weeks.  We really expected it to be gone yesterday, but late last night when I got here, it was still there.  He has been discontinued off all medications (no infections, stopped the diuretic) at this point now, and his chest x-ray was clear yesterday.  They reduced his feedings a bit (from 28 down to 26 cc’s) to help keep fluid off his chest.

Here is a little update from last Thursday for perspective:

* they started giving him some caffeine to stimulate breathing
* nurse thought he wasn't quite himself this morning so they drew some blood for testing. CBC and a CRP to check for infection.
* CBC was normal and the CRP was slightly elevated by the Dr is not concerned at this point. Will repeat a CBC and CRP in the morning.
* Blood count is a little low but not at a worrisome level. They have started him on an iron supplement.
* Blood gas was drawn at 2 and another will be drawn at 8. This is being done to continue weaning his rate on the vent.
* When we arrived at the hospital yesterday, his rate was at 22. We were VERY surprised!! This morning the rate was down to 17. The reason we are eagerly watching this number is because when the rate goes down to 10-12 ... they will EXTUBATE and we will be OFF THE RESPIRATOR!!

Friday, I got to hold him like a BABY!  Kangaroo care is great, but it is a bit awkward, you are 1/2 naked, and you have to be very still.  This was more comfortable and natural:

And again on Sunday - this time he was more alert!

I don’t know what kept me from blogging this past week.  It was a little busy, but not too bad.  Back and forth from the city a few times, my 6 week postpartum check (and pap smear – YUCK), took the big girls to the dentist, picked my cousin and her 13 month old son up from the airport, and saw Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1 TWICE! (Don’t judge!)  But, it has been an emotional week beyond the busy-ness.  Besides all the emotional strain our family was under, my OSU Cowboy family suffered a great loss this past Thursday when a plane carrying 2 of our women’s basketball coaches went down in Arkansas while on a recruiting trip.  All 4 occupants were killed.  The pilots were OSU alums who had agreed to fly Head Coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna for a recruiting trip.  I got the call early Friday morning from a friend, before the media got a hold of the story, and it truly brought back memories of the crash 10 years ago that killed 10 people with the OSU men’s basketball program.  How could it have happened again?  To our program, our school, our community?  We lost so much on Thursday when that plane went down. I knew both of the coaches from my time in the Athletics Department, and Britt had talked to Miranda about our family just the other day.  They will both be dearly missed.  While my body is in Oklahoma City today with my baby, my heart will be in Gallagher Iba Arena at 1pm when the memorial service starts.  I am wearing my orange today for them.

I am currently in the lounge at the NICU waiting for the time to come for me to change Finn’s diaper, take his temperature, and see how he is doing this morning.  His night nurse saw me in here and told me we are back down on the pressure on the ventilator, so maybe in the next 2 days they will extubate! We can only hope!  As for me, I am doing OK.  Everyone keeps telling me I look good, so I am either good at faking it, or the pace and stress I am keeping up under is making me look better to others!  LOL!  I don’t know, but I’ll take the complements.  I was just thinking this morning about how since Finn was born, I have not spent more than 4 nights in a row in the same bed.  And that was the first week when I was with my friends in OKC and couldn’t drive yet, and then again at home when I was in Stillwater for Homecoming / Halloween weekend.  WOW!  This Wednesday will mark 7 weeks in the NICU.  7 long weeks.  But so worth it!  I was told by a nurse last night that I should have him home for Christmas.  I promptly sang “All I Want for Christmas is You” to Finn.  He liked it!  So do I.

First, the good news

The good news is, Britt and I, as well as the rest of our family, are so incredibly blessed, and we know we owe our Lord all the glory for that!  Over the weekend, we were loved on and showered by some amazing friends.  Finn has a whole new host of new things he needs, things we wanted him to have, and things others wanted him to have – all given with love!  One guest even blessed and surprised Emma, Lara and Jake by bringing some fun trinkets for them as well!  I want to thank the AMAZING ladies of LTC, along with my dear, “old” friends Rachael and Tara for making it a super awesome party, and for everyone who came and made our day special!  (The opening picture is of the cake, the diaper cake, and the painting we were presented with!)  Looks like I will have some thank you notes to write over the next few days…

And the GREAT news is, Finn is doing SO WELL! He now weighs 3 pounds 2 ounces, and he is just over 16 inches long.  (I guess this is an “up” on the roller coaster ride…)  When I walked into my son's room mid-morning today, all the pumps were turned OFF! No IV's (fluids, meds or otherwise) and the PICC line is gone from his arm! Hallelujah!  He looks so FREE!  Like he could just TAKE OFF!  I took advantage of the freedom he must be feeling to partake in some Kangaroo care this afternoon, too.  I held him for almost 3 hours, and he tolerated it SO WELL!  So much better than he ever has.  Plus, during the 3 “hands on” times I was there for, he didn’t ”de-sat” (decreases in his oxygen saturation levels) the way he normally does!  Early this afternoon (while I was holding, in fact) the rate on his respirator was turned down to 31 (from 33 – it was in the 40’s last week), and the oxygen percentage was turned down to 58% (down 65% earlier today, and down from 70% just a few days ago).  SO EXCITING!  They had been weaning him off the phentanyl (opiate sedative) very very slowly, and they introduced oral morphine yesterday to take its place.  He tolerated that well, so that was the last IV medication he was on, so they discontinued that last night, and pulled the PICC line this morning!  He has not had morphine since 5:00pm yesterday, and he is actually doing better OFF the sedation meds!  (Maybe that was holding him back all along?  He was just too comfortable to work hard?  Just a thought… We’ll never know…)   Here’s to a few more days of an up-swing and more weaning from the respirator!  Here is a picture of him sucking his thumb (his new favorite pastime) while I held him this afternoon:

Some more great news?  The Oklahoma Blood Institute is hosting a blood drive at OSU this week!  It is the Bedlam Blood Drive and it is a little friendly competition between Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma to see who can collect the most donated blood.  We are encouraging everyone we know to donate, and you can donate for Finn!! If you are on campus, you can donate between the hours of 10-5 today thru Friday. Kerr Drummond North Dining Room or the OBI bloodmobiles parked on Athletic Street. Get a free t-shirt, get entered into the drawing for Bedlam tickets and tell them you are donating for Finn Weaver!  Finn and Mom even got a little SHOUT OUT in the Daily O’Collegian today.  (Click the link to read it!)  Rumor has it, there will be a full length feature story on Finn Weaver coming up later this week!

And, for some super fun news?  My Oklahoma State University COWBOY Football team is 10 – 0, and is ranked #2 in the nation!  We won our game this past weekend by a margin of 60 points, which led to a 40% discount on all clothing in the Student Store today!  I made the obligatory trip to the Student Union this morning – arrived at 8:02, shopped till about 8:20, finally paid and left about 9:15!!!  WHEW! Britt said he walked over about 4:00pm, and the lines were UNBELIEVABLE, so he left!  It’s a GREAT time to be a COWBOY!  GO POKES!

 

Home... For now

Finn is now 3 weeks old.  He weighs 2 pounds 6 ounces.  He is still under the photo therapy lights, is lightly sedated, and is in the middle of his course of steroids to help his lungs.  The settings on the oscillator go down (or get better) every day, and it sounds like once he is off the steroids and remains stable, they will move him back to the traditional ventilator.  Hopefully early next week, but we have no way of knowing for sure at this point.  He is still on 2 kinds of IV fluid for preemies, lipids for extra fat to help him grow, as well as the steroids, and the pain killer/opiate for sedation.  He is doing really well, we just have to keep the progress going!  He is working hard, and it is showing!

I am actually home for a couple of days.  In my house.  With my husband and the Little Dream Weavers. I will sleep in my own bed for several nights.  What a concept!  Tonight we are attending parent/teacher conferences for the girls, and then tomorrow night is Walkaround for OSU Homecoming.  I am very excited to be able to participate in this tradition.  Then Saturday is the parade, and the football game.  It sounds like right now we will forgo the game so we can go back to the hospital to see Finn, as I am sure my withdrawal with be at an epic proportion at that point.  This is the most time I have been away from him.  I know he is in EXCELLENT hands and won’t even miss me, but it’s sad to think I can’t be there for him.  The flip side is I am HOME with my other babies, and they need me too.

Last weekend was SO MUCH FUN!  I want to thank my LTC LifeGroup and my family for helping to make that happen!  We had such a good time just hanging out with each other, staying in a hotel, going to the hospital whenever we felt like it, eating good food, and even seeing the movie “Courageous.”  We were blessed by the gift of getting all dressed up and going to a fancy restaurant one night, too.  What a treat!  We also watched OSU Cowboy football with great friends, and went to church at LifeChurch Edmond with friends on Sunday morning.  We were both a little sad come Sunday morning when we realized that our little fantasy weekend was coming to an end.

But, it was so worth it to get all of the five dream Weavers under one roof again!  PLUS – there was a little “While You Were Out” makeover that happened for Finn while we were on our “vacation.”  Our dear LifeGroup decorated Finn’s nursery for his homecoming!  He doesn’t get his own room, just the whole north wall of our bedroom with a changing table (that was Emma and Lara’s, then Jake’s), a crib (Jake’s), and a wicker étagère with glass shelves that used to house my television.  They decked it all out with baskets for storage, bedding, a rug, and TONS of supplies – all with a precious owl theme!  It even spilled over to our bed a little bit, too!  Here are some pictures:

Also over the weekend, Britt took two adorable video clips of our littlest Dream Weaver.  I spliced them together and put them on YouTube.  I just called to check on Finn this morning, and his nurse (who has never cared for him before today) just went on and ON about how cute he is!  I know I am a bit partial, but I think he is SUPER cute as well!

I am looking forward to this weekend at home, but I already miss my sweet, finicky boy.  Send up extra prayers for him in my absence!

Friday Musings

It’s Friday, and I have no drama to dwell on at the moment, so I thought I would post some end of the week fluff.  One of the common conversation starters in my house is the question “What was your favorite thing you did today?”  Hubby and I ask each other, we ask the kids, sometimes even the kids ask each other.  We don’t do it every day, and there is no rhyme or reason to it, it just started when he and I were dating, and it has grown from there.  I can honestly say, my favorite thing of the day happened early this morning!  (Get your head out of the gutter!)  My sweet, precious, 4 year old bundle of energy got out of bed a good half hour before he usually does.  I was in the living room sitting in my recliner, and I had just finished up my quiet time.  He climbed up on my lap, and I held him and we cuddled for about 45 minutes.  I had things I needed to be doing (Don’t mind my non-washed styled hair today), but this time was precious to me.  He wanted me to rub his back, and lightly tickle him.  He told me all about what he did at swim lessons last night, and he told me this: 

I just love him so much and he melts my heart when he does stuff like this!  Makes up for the CONSTANT chatter and questions from last night when I really just wanted him to go to bed early and leave me alone because it was 106 outside and 83 inside!  UGH!  

In other news, Oklahoma State Cowboy Football released the images of their new uniforms for this season from Nike.  My buddy Kyle Porter first blogged about it late Wednesday night.  He got so many hits, fans crashed his site during the day on Thursday.  He got a lot of local press Thursday, too!  Good job, Kyle!  The OSU Athletics site didn’t put them up until late Thursday evening, but I digress.  My point is, they have been THE TALK of Cowboys fans on both Facebook and Twitter (and message boards, too, I am sure!) for the past 36 hours or so.  In my best assessment of the posts I have seen, Guys LOVE them, Women are split down the middle! LOL!  My opinion (which if you follow me on Twitter or are a Facebook friend, you already know), is that gray is NOT an OSU color and it looks drab and dirty, I have never been a fan of all black, and I LOATHE Evil Phantom Pete.  My first choice would be white helmet, orange jersey, orange pants.  Second choice is white helmet (the gray and the black are both “flat” (not shiny) and I just don’t like ‘em), black jersey, orange pants.  Whatever they wear, it doesn’t matter.  It’s just going to be super fun to watch my ‘Boys have an AMAZING season and to see Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon (whom I helped recruit and was there for his signing day when I worked in football) leave it all out on the field and put some wins on the scoreboard.  GO POKES!  (and PLEASE leave Evil Phantom Pete to die off. So disturbing…)

 

And finally, the weather.  What. The. HEAT!!!!!  It’s gotten to the point where it doesn’t even matter.  It’s so hot, and there is nothing more to say about it, and DEFINITELY nothing we can do about it.  People posting pics of the thermometer in their car are completely ignored.  The fact that everyone we know is going into cardiac arrest when they open their electric bill is not even fazing us anymore.  Weather used to be the go-to topic when a conversation hit a lull, but it’s so hot and boring to talk about, people just stare at each other.  Our governor is asking up to pray for rain.  There are burn bans, water rationing schedules, and swimming pools across the state are closing because the water is too warm to safely swim in.  We are tying or breaking heat records every day.  AND THERE IS NO END IN SIGHT!  It's not even August yet.  My dad always talks about the summer of 1980 because it was so hot.  (I don’t remember, I was 5.)  Well, Dad, I think we may beat that one by quite a bit the way it looks.  We are actually CHEERING for tropical storm Don in the Gulf of Mexico to hit Texas and bring some moisture our way.  How sad is that?  When was the last time we BEGGED for a storm?

So, on that happy note, I will say – enjoy your weekend!  We are taking the Jakester back to school shopping a bit tomorrow, and enjoying a block party put on by a church near our neighborhood, and waiting patiently for our girls to come back home (they will be back Monday night).  Should be a good (hot) day.  Hope you have one, too!