Day 42 - Photo Shoot

Wednesday, February 10th, 2021

Morning:

Weight: 1230 grams (2lbs 10 ounces)

Quick Notes from convo with the doctor:
Echocardiogram Results from 2/8:

-Continued to show the trivial anterior pericardial effusion
-NEW find, small *PDA not noted on prior echos. This was closed and now is open.

*Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) is an extra blood vessel found in babies before birth and just after birth. In most babies who have an otherwise normal heart, the PDA will shrink and close on its own in the first few days of life. If it stays open longer, it may cause extra blood to flow to the lungs.

Also slowly weening morphine by keeping the same dosage but increasing his weight.

We are considering every day a win with everything essentially staying stable.

Afternoon:  James is still doing well. We are getting closer to his first day doing skin to skin with Mom. We are shooting for this weekend sometime, assuming things stay the course.  James is growing steadily and is getting bigger. Our goal is for him to breathe easy and grow. His FIO2 has been between 39-50%. His Hct is 31, but not low enough for another blood transfusion as of yet. If he gets closer to 25 we may need to transfuse. His feeds were adjusted yesterday to promote continued growth.

He also had a great photo shoot today with Mom and Dad. 

Some pictures taken by our awesome nurse

Evening: James had a bowel movement and weighed in at 1340g, but that could be off due to his new bed and having this device next to his head that might be skewing his weight a bit. We will see tomorrow. 

Update on Mom:

Another lactation consultant stopped by our room this afternoon and was very helpful. She confirmed flange sizes and answered a lot of our questions. 🤱🏻

We also recently found out that Lindsay has vasospasms. ⚡😣 This makes pumping very painful during and after. This started in the last two weeks. The reason she didn't feel this from the very beginning is because she was on blood pressure medicine for the first 3 weeks. The typical solution for vasospasms is to get on blood pressure medicine to help with the constructing blood vessels. Unfortunately her blood pressure is now below average, so that's probably not going to be the answer. Just staying warm and keeping a lot of heat on the area will help. We may have a new shark tank idea for portable heating cloth breastpads (no microwave, no cords, no batteries). 💡 On the other hand, staying warm is really bad for postpartum hives. Yay! Her postpartum six week follow up with her OB is tomorrow.

Overall, she is trying to stick to a strict pumping schedule. Stocking our deep freezer at home, while giving the hospital a couple bottles of fresh milk for Baby James's feeds. 🍼