Campbell had a big day today: he had his first visit to a doctor outside the NICU.  We went to the pediatrician today, and found out that he was 5 pounds 9 ounces (but, that was his first weigh in with a diaper) and 18 inches long.  All other signs were good, as well.  The doc did tell us that Campbell could start deciding when to eat instead of sticking to a strict schedule, though, which is both good (it means he’s healthy) and bad (if he decides to get hungry more than every four hours).

All in all, we think the little guy is getting used to being home, but he’s still a bigger fan of noise than quiet; I guess hearing lots of monitors beeping, alarms sounding, and others baby crying was his normal.

Campbell’s first day has gone well.  We haven’t managed to break him yet, so that’s something since we are novices at this. At least we have had 9 weeks of training in the NICU on how to do everything from diaper changing to swaddling to using a bulb suction.  I don’t think we could have had any better training.

The cats continue to be intrigued by Campbell (he seems far less interested in them than they are in him), but everyone seems to be getting along so far.

He’s definitely got his days and nights mixed up.  After he slept soundly all morning (having exhausted himself overnight, no doubt), the big adventure of the day was a spa treatment!  Campbell’s nails are so long – they don’t cut them in the NICU, so they’ve been growing for 9 1/2 weeks.  Here’s a picture of them

And of Campbell getting his first spa treatment.  🙂

And letting everyone know how fabulous he looks:

Campbell is home!  Yay!  He is 18 inches long, and weighs 5 pounds, 3 ounces up from 2 pounds 2.6 ounces and 14.5 inches long when he was born.  He spent 9 weeks and 3 days or 66 days in the NICU.  Today he was 36 weeks and 5 days, gestationally.

Here’s a pic of us with him in his carseat getting ready to go home:

And one of all three of us on the way out of the hospital:

And his first time being outside – he isn’t quite so sure about outside, just yet…

And, you can see how excitedly happy (that’s what that face is, right?) Campbell is to be home here:

(He looks–and sounds– a little like the Swedish Chef  from the Muppets in his hat that’s too big for him).

Jeeves and Shamu aren’t quite so sure about him yet, either, but everyone seems to be getting along so far.

And, finally, here he is all settled in at home in his “moses” basket.

It still looks like Campbell will be coming home tomorrow.  He’s passed all of his tests and he’s still eating well.  So, tonight we are “rooming in” with Campbell at the hospital.  Essentially, we are just outside in the NICU in a room with the little guy and monitors still on him.  They want parents to do this to make sure they feel comfortable taking care of their kids for a night, but with the nurses and doctors right around the corner.  So, hopefully, this will be a smooth night and we’ll all three go home tomorrow!  (Although, the doctor told us that sometimes parents don’t feel totally comfortable after one night and want to stay a second).

Here’s pic of his new digs tonight–I’m calling it the “halfway house” between the NICU and home.

It isn’t bad, but it is not the quietest or most comfortable room in the world.  I’m convinced they do that on purpose to get you used to having a bad night’s sleep before the sleepless nights to come when nurses don’t take care of your crying baby :).  So far so good (see below), but we’re only about a couple of hours in.  🙂

Well, I got a call from the doctor today, and we have great news!  We think we are going to be able to bring Campbell home on Sunday – two days from now!

He’s going to come home on an apnea monitor, which we think is just precautionary because he’s been doing great and hasn’t had any alarms in the past week or so.  We had to get trained on it today.  It’s incredibly loud when you turn it on and when it goes off – and apparently there are a lot of false alarms as the probes can get out of position.  We are going to have to take a bottle of wine and an apology note to our neighbors, who will not be loving this monitor!  But it will be nice, especially in the beginning, to not have to worry that he’s going to stop breathing in the middle of the night!

He’s doing great with his food and has gained even more weight.  He’s up to 5 pounds, 2 ounces now and he’s taking good volume with his feeds.  His feeding tube is out – and hopefully for good!

He also got circumcised early this morning – poor guy – but it seems to have gone okay and is nice to have help from the nurses to take care of him right now.  And it doesn’t seem to bother him too much.

He also had his car seat test, and he passed that with flying colors.  You can see him here in the NICU carseat for the test:

And, finally, plastic surgery came to look at his hemangioma (small birthmark on the top of his head).  They say it’s fine and nothing to worry about, but we will follow up in a few weeks.

So, tomorrow, we will go to the hospital in the evening and “room in” with Campbell in the parents’ overnight room.  We’ll be responsible for taking care of him, but we’ll have the nurses as backup if we need anything.  And, after that, we’ll hopefully be able to bring him home!  We’re very excited and also terrified, of course!

Here are pictures of his soon to be “old” room:

We had a great visit with Campbell today, and dad was able to stand by an earlier flight to make it for the 4pm visit.  Campbell nursed well again, and took 55 ccs plus another 20 from the bottle.  He’s definitely getting the hang of this eating thing, though he did have to get part of one of his feedings by tube overnight.  He has also gained a little weight overnight, which is great, though he is still tiny, as you can see here:

Dr. Arrindell, Sr. told us that Campbell’s alkaline phosphatase is a little high.  This means that he probably has a touch of osteopenia of prematurity.  This is not something to worry about – it just means he needs a vitamin D supplement and more calcium.  So they’re switching him to take a specialized preemie formula twice a day.  It should resolve with that in a few months and not be a long-term issue for him.

He’s also growing – he’s now 17 3/4 inches long!  Here’s hoping his height comes from Mason’s side of the family!  He’s not quite back to 5 pounds, but he’s getting close.

Also, I think we’re getting closer to bringing him home.  Today they did his hearing screen (which was normal), and they are trying to set up his circumcision tomorrow.  And, they’ve asked us to bring in his carseat tomorrow (Friday) so that we can do the car seat test.  (This ensures that he can handle sitting up in the car seat for an extended period of time).  These are all positive signs!

Campbell didn’t take all of his feedings overnight (had to take some by tube for all three), but he did gain about half an ounce, which is something.  I tried breast feeding today, and he did really well with it – took 50 ounces and then another 15 by bottle, which is more than the 62 he’s supposed to get.  And, the lactation consultant suggested feeding him “hind milk,” which comes from the later part of the pumping.  It’s richer and has more calories and may make him gain weight better.  So we’ll try that and see how he does and whether it helps him gain weight.

He also got some of his two month vaccinations today, and he seems to be doing okay with that.

It’s frustrating for us that he isn’t quite ready to come home, but based on this smile, he doesn’t look frustrated at all… Welcome to parenting, I think.  🙂

We had a nice visit with Campbell today.  Dad had to leave early to travel to Williamsburg for the last time until January! Yay!  We hoped that Mason would be home when Campbell came home, and now that looks definitively to be the case.

Campbell had to take part of his food from the three overnight feedings by tube, which was disappointing, but they did increase his volume to 62, so I’m sure he’s just going at his own pace and getting adjusted.  We’ve confirmed that it’s the vitamins that he doesn’t like (Diana separated them out with a small amount of milk that he flat refused this morning).  But that doesn’t explain the overnight feeds since he just gets vitamins at the 8am feeding.

He did gain about 15 grams (1/2 an ounce) last night, so we hope that will continue.  He needs to show that he can gain about that much weight each day for them to let him go home.  So, at this point, I’ll be surprised if we’re home before the early part of next week.  But I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, since Campbell’s always been on his own schedule…

Well, Campbell is still only 4 pounds, 14 ounces, and down a little on the grams.  That’s within the margin of error on weighing, but still, it would be better if we could see him gaining weight.  Dr. Arrindell said the doctors were talking about either trying to fortify his milk to give it more nutrition/calories or to try to increase the amount he’s taking.  They are going to try upping him to 62 ccs (from 60) and see how he does with that.  He did take all of his feeds, but Diana gave him the vitamins through the feeding tube.

We don’t think he’s had any alarms on his new monitor, so that’s also good.

And, the ophthalmologist came again today. His retinopathy has improved from Stage 1, Zone 2 to Stage 0, Zone 3, so that’s also good.  (They weren’t worried about it before, but it’s still better).

Well, Campbell lost a little weight again today.  Down to 4 pounds, 14 ounces.  Usually they would be fortifying his milk at this point for extra nutrition, but they wanted to try to see how he did without fortifier in light of the GI issues that we’ve had previously.  We’ll have to watch and see – they won’t send him home as long as he isn’t gaining weight.

They did up his feeds to 60 today, but he didn’t take his 8am feeding again.  Rebecca thinks he doesn’t like the vitamins they put in his milk for that feeding – it was the same one that he rejected yesterday – and he’s taking all the other ones.  So we shall see.

Dr. Koneru called him a short timer and said he was one of the “easy babies” at the moment – so that’s good.  We just need to get these weight and feeding issues sorted out, but it’s nothing they’re really worried about.  He’s also going to get vaccines, and maybe get circumcised before he goes home (poor guy).

He hasn’t had any alarms since they installed the new monitor yesterday.  Here’s a picture of his new monitor:

And a sweet pic of him:

Well, we got a little disappointing news this morning.  They had to put Campbell’s feeding tube back in because he only took half of his 8am feeding.  The main thing is for him to get the nutrition, so while we’re not excited, it’s not unusual for babies his size to wear out before finishing a whole bottle.  He took the whole thing enthusiastically at noon, so we’re optimistic that he’s just getting used to the new and bigger volume.  He’s up to 55 ccs now, which is almost 2 ounces, so it’s a good sized volume for him.  He seems to enjoy it when mom feeds him. 🙂

He’s actually lost a little weight, and is 4 pounds and 15 ounces now.  That’s probably the extra exertion to eat, the loss of the picc line (yay!), and the fact that he isn’t quite up to full volume on his feedings.

He also had a few heart rate drops while dad was kangarooing with him today, so they decided to change his monitor. They’ve removed his oxygen saturation monitor (he doesn’t need it anymore), and put him on the kind of heart rate and breathing monitor that they send home with people (when necessary).  The good thing about this monitor is that they can download the data and evaluate him to see whether his drops are real or just the sensors moving around, etc.  This will help us know whether we might need to go home on a monitor.

This is a picture of mom’s first attempt at swaddling!  🙂

Well, we got great news today!  Campbell took all of his bottles overnight for Marsha!  (I think she has the magic touch).  So they’ve left the feeding tube out, and they’re talking about taking the picc line out, as well.  He’s also up to 55 ccs on his feedings.  He didn’t take quite all of it today when we visited, but he took enough that they didn’t need to supplement him with anything.  We think he’s saying woo-hoo here!  🙂

We also talked to Dr. Hayden about what the plan is from here.  Hopefully, we can get the picc line out and see him gain weight and take his bottles by mouth for a few days.  He also needs to get his two month vaccinations, and they don’t want to do that until he has the picc line out (so that they can be sure if he gets a fever that it’s from the vaccinations and not an infection).  So we think the earliest we could possibly get him home would be the end of next week, but that depends on him.  He’s still having some bradycardia (heart rate drops) that they think are caused by reflux, so they’re giving him some medicine for that and keeping his crib a little bit inclined.  If that doesn’t improve by the time we go home, they may send him home on an apnea monitor just to be safe.  

I can’t really explain why we have three different kinds of pacifiers in his crib. 🙂

Campbell continues to do really well!  He’s up to 5 pounds, 1.6 ounces, 17 inches long, and his head circumference is up to 31 1/2 centimeters.

And, he’s doing well with his feedings too.  He took his whole bottle several times today, including when Gigi fed him at 8pm.  So we think he’s decided he’s done with the feeding tube.  So much so that he apparently pulled it out himself between the 4pm and 8pm feedings.  So, we are hopeful that he will not have to get the feeding tube back.  These are all positive steps – he’s really doing great!

 

Campbell had a great day today.  He’s up to 42 ccs on his feedings, and early this morning, Tammy, the night nurse was able to get him to take his whole bottle by mouth!  Of course, he was significantly less interested in the next bottle after that, but we can only expect so much!  He’s also moving things through his digestive system on his own, so we are very hopeful that his was just a “motility” issue instead of something more serious.

Gigi got to give him a bottle today at lunch (he took about half of it), and when I went up for kangarooing this afternoon, he was smiling the whole time he took his bottle (also about half).  Thankfully, the nurse (Julie) took this picture of us since I didn’t have any available hands:

Unfortunately, while we were kangarooing, Campbell had several heart rate alarms.  He wasn’t doing this before he started getting up on his feeds again, so they think it is probably reflux.  Yesterday they started him on some prilosec, but that takes a little while to work.  So we will have to watch that.

He also is up to 4 pounds, 13 ounces.  I can’t believe he’s almost 5 pounds!

They keep upping the amount of food that Campbell is getting, and he is tolerating it well. He is up to 34 ccs today.  He is struggling to eat that much by bottle, and it is wearing him out.  So they are going to limit him to about 20 minutes by mouth each time and then give him the rest by tube.  But, since he is getting more and more milk, he is needing less and less IV nutrition.  I hope it won’t be too long before they can take out the picc line entirely.

Here’s a sweet picture of Mason carefully burping Campbell today.

And a cute one from his crib when we got there to visit.

Campbell is starting to digest like a champ.  So, that’s great.  He’s not eating as well, though.  They are bumping up his food really fast, and he’s not always wanting to eat it all.  He gets a little tired after the first 10 ccs or so, and won’t take the rest by bottle.  So, they put a feeding tube back in, unfortunately. Other than that, all signs are pretty good–he’s still in his “big boy” bed and is still wearing clothes, though not in this picture here.

You can see the rubber band contraption they’ve created to help hang his feeding tube since he’s in an open crib now.  I think you can do anything with rubber bands and duct tape.

And speaking of contraptions…  🙂

We got to see Campbell in his new “big boy” bed today!

He’s apparently doing well with maintaining his body temperature, so we are hoping he will get to stay in it.

He’s also eating pretty well.  They’ve upped his feedings again – now to 28 ccs every 4 hours.  30 ccs is one ounce, so he’s getting nearly an ounce at each feeding.  He gets very excited for it in the beginning, but then he gets sleepy and sometimes wants to sleep instead of taking the whole thing, but he will if you keep waking him up.  🙂  And, he apparently likes to burp a lot.  He takes after Mason in lots of ways.  🙂

And here is a sweet pic of his cute face:

Well, we had a great visit today and some really positive news today!  They’ve upped his milk again to 22 ccs every 4 hours. He’s doing pretty well with it – he’s always very excited to start eating, but he tends to tire out and not be quite as interested in the last little bit.  So, he’s having to learn to work for his food, but we think he’s doing pretty well so far.  Here’s a picture of mom burping him today:

In other exciting news, they put him in clothes for the first time today at noon when we visited!  We didn’t know to bring anything from home, so this is something they had at the hospital.  You can see that he isn’t quite sure here what to make of it in the first picture, but he settled right in in the second one:

This was a bit of a test to see if he can maintain his body temperature with just the clothes and a blanket so they can move him out of the incubator and into an open crib. They turned off all supplemental heat in his incubator to see how he did.  He apparently passed the test with flying colors, and now they have now moved him into an open crib.  This is a major step toward being able to go home.  And, this (yay!) also means he’s lost another wire.  If you’ve noticed in some of the pictures, he has a little gold duck or teddy bear stuck on his stomach, side, or back. These are temperature sensors that monitor his body heat.  Now we think they will just check his temperature every four hours to see how he is doing.

So this is hopefully the last picture we will have of him in his incubator:  🙂

And, finally, in the most important news of the day, Campbell got to watch his first Masters with dad!

Dad got to give Campbell a bottle for the first time today:

They have upped him from 10 ccs to 16 ccs, and he seems to be taking it pretty well from a bottle as you can see in this close-up:

And, all that milk is making him chubby – he’s up to 4 pounds, 9 ounces, as you can see here:

And, he’s obviously very happy that they are finally feeding him!

It is official: Campbell is kind of chubby (as you can see below).  He’s up to 10 Cc’s of milk, and has handled that well.  We are hoping that he keeps digesting as they keep increasing his food.  I’m thinking that he’s putting his hands to his face as a way to say that he’s  pretty pumped that he’s still getting fed and also that the Masters has started.

And, yay!  Mom got to give Campbell a bottle for the first time today!

And, I think Campbell is developing a bit of an oral fixation.  🙂