Noah is home...finally!

After 72 days in hospital, Noah came home on Tuesday. It has been an absolute delight having him home. He has been waking up between every 3 to 4 hours for a nappy change and a feed but he is really good during the night. Around midnight, 4.15am and 8.30am. During the day he feeds a little closer together, I think to make up for long gaps at night. Plus he might be having a growth spurt. We have had visits, but not too many, we have been visiting, but not too much and we have taken him to our fertility doctor for a show off and he was really lovely and genuinely so happy for us both that after 3 years of infertility treatment we finally have a healthy little baby!! He held the baby and gave us both a cuddle and congratulated us both.

He has come out of the whole experience pretty much unscathed. He has a small hemangioma on his forearm, which will go away in time.  He does have a little bit of Retinopathy of Prematurity, but it is stable at stage II so it will most likely resolve itself without treatment. He is home on only Iron (for Anemia) and Pentavite (Multivitamin).

Before leaving the hospital he had a full blood count, a head ultrasound, an eye test and a hearing test. He was a little anemic, which could have resolved on its own in time, but we decided to go ahead and give him some blood so that he would have enough energy to breastfeed. His head ultrasound was completely normal. He passed his hearing test with flying colours. His eye test revealed that he still has Stage II Zone II ROP, but that the blood vessels are nice and fine and non-tortuous so it will more than likely resolve itself. He has to go back to the hospital Tuesday for another eye check and the Friday after that he has a check up with his paediatrician.

Now I'm going to talk about poo so if you dont want to hear about this, you might want to skip this paragraph. We had to give him a suppository yesterday because he hadn't pooped for about 7 days and he was really uncomfortable straining and pushing to no avail. So we cut a glycerine suppository in half and popped it up there and he is now suitably relieved. Its normal for a breastfed baby to go up to 10 days without a poo, but he is also on iron so maybe that is making him a little more constipated, so we let it go for for 7 days but that was enough.  He was crying straining. We tried giving him cooled boiled water for a couple of days, then the brown sugar and prune juice and apple juice suggestions came, but we think he is too little to experiment with sugars right now. Might throw out his electrolyte balance or something. The suppositories aren't something that you do every few days, it is more a last resort. Hopefully he will have built up some pooing muscles with all that straining over 10 days.

Ok back to the nice stuff. He has had a few visits with his Nana who loves him so much she was upset yesterday that she couldn't hold him because she felt a bit queasy in the tummy, so she sacrificed her cuddles for his sake. We have heaps of photos that have to uploaded. Also need to go to the photo booth and print some hard copies of these photos so we can post them out to everyone and get his photo album sorted. He is so cute in his little clothes. We have two pj's in 000000's but mostly his outfits are 00000's and a little bit big on him, but he will grow into them. But i think he will grow too tall for them before long.

When Kim had the 19 week ultrasound, his arms and legs were measuring 2 to 3 weeks behind (the start of his growth restriction). The sonographer put it down to hereditary shortness on Kim's behalf. But it turns out that he has got big feet and hands and his arms and legs are quite long really. So i don't think this kid is gonna be a short stuff like his mum. Here is a pic of Noah getting cuddles with Nana!

Oh well how ever he turns out, he is going to be absolutely lovely, we are in love totally with our little man and we are enjoying having him home waking us up and taking up every spare moment we have 100%

Nearly there...

Well Noah should be home next week!!! He is now 2030 grams and he is in an open cot, off all monitors, only has an apnoea monitor called a Grasby. He was a little bit anemic and didn't want to feed properly because he was tired all the time so they gave him another blood transfusion so he perks up and has the energy to feed.  He is nice and pink now. He is breastfeeding four times a day now and he will have a final head ultrasound on Monday, another eye scan on Monday and a final blood count to see that he is not anemic still. Then the plan is to room in on Tuesday and Wednesday night at the hospital and then we can go home on Thursday next week!!!

We are so excited. Finally getting our baby home. We have gone and bought nappies and wipes and some more wraps and have washed all his clothes and linen and getting everything set up for him. We are off to the hospital this morning to put in a full day with him today and also tomorrow to get his breastfeeding on track. Four breast feeds during the day and they tube feed him at night for the next few days, then the rooming in for two nights is to make sure he can breast feed 24 hours a day. Packed lunches, long hours, all worth it!!!

Almost home!!

Well its been a while between posts and really not a lot has happened. Noah has graduated from High Dependency to Special Care Unit. Last stop before home. Noah is still wonderful and stable and growing and he is now off all monitors except heart rate and oxygen saturations!!! He is on the same dose of caffiene as he always was so by getting bigger he is growing out of the dose. But he hasn't been having any brady's or apnoeas.  He is now 1720 grams ( or 3 pounds 13 ounces!!) and so he will hopefully be taken out of the isolette into an open cot today!!! They have gradually been turning down the temperature in the isolette to get him used to maintaining his own body temperature and putting little outfits on him and they graded up to 3 hourly feeds yesterday. He is on one breastfeed attempt a day still and it depends on how awake he is and how hungry he is as to whether he is interested. They reckon that now he will have a chance to get hungry he will soon learn where the food is!!

One night i noticed some little lumps under his arms. The doctor was called and they are lymph nodes. So he ordered a blood test which came back fine, but he gave him one dose of Lasix because he was getting a bit puffy. He peed all that extra fluid out and looked much better and started breathing a little less rapidly as well. He also did well on his last eye exam and he will be having another one tomorrow, just to make sure his vision  is developing normally. He had to have a little bag stuck to his little fella yesterday for a urine test. All these tests freak you out but they are just so careful with these little babies at the Mater Mothers its amazing the care they all receive. It's a relief to come home and know that he is being so well looked after.  One of the nurses put him to bed after a cuddle and as she put him in she gave him a little nurse and a kiss on his soft hair  before she put him back. These nurses really love looking after the babies. It must be hard for them with a really sick baby. But they say babies like Noah make the job worthwhile. Seeing a baby that would normally not survive being born at 27 weeks grow into a healthy bub is their reward.

And healthy he is just look at this little chubby cherub!!

Leaps and Bounds...

Noah has had an absolutely great week! He is now 1340 grams (or 2 pounds 15 ounces). He has been more settled in that his heart rate has slowed to the 160's and he is back on the full dose of caffeine. I really think the little hiccup he had was due to anemia and now that he has had that transfusion everything is back to normal.

He has been nuzzling with Kim to learn how to breastfeed and he has latched on a couple of times and given some good sucks. Sometimes he's not interested, but he isn't meant to know what to do at all until he is at 35 weeks and he is still only 33 weeks and 3 days old. In a couple of weeks that part of the brain will mature and he will be searching for the nipple and sucking and swallowing and breathing all at the same time. The nurses say its just amazing how they just switch from not knowing what to do with a nipple to latching on and doing what nature intended.

He sucks his little dummy perfectly, we haven't tried him with a bottle so if we do have any problems at least we can try a bottle with breast milk. Heaven knows we have about 6 months supply in the freezer. Frozen breast milk is better than formula if it comes to that. But i don't think it will. He'll get there. And I don't think it will be too long at all until he does.

Best Laid Plans...

Well it's official. Noah is now 1 kg!!! Yay!!!!!!!! A 1000 grams and we thought we were home and hose when he got to 1 kg. Funny how he was no trouble at all when he was little. This little man has had a few ups and downs the last few days. Firstly his heart rate was sitting in the 190's and often set the heart rate alarm off going above 200 when he squirmed, pushed to poo, during cares, etc.... This was a worry to the nurses so they mentioned it to the doctor on call one evening and they decided do do a full blood count. The bloods came back saying he was a little anemic but otherwise perfect. They let it go and decided to reduce his caffeine.  Heart rate came down a little over a couple of days but not enough. So they did bloods again and his hematocrit levels were lower again so it was time for a transfusion. He got 18 mls of blood and he was really red for a few days. Seems to have settled down now. They'll wait about a week to do bloods again.

His heart rate settled down nicely, only issue is they don't know if it was the blood transfusion or the reduction in caffeine. Now his oxygen saturation levels are lower and he desaturates when he squirms, pushes to poo, during cares, etc... and a couple of bradycardia's are happening now when the weren't before. So they have decided to up the caffeine again. They did a chest x-ray to make sure he wasn't getting chronic lung disease or getting an infection, which he isn't thank god and they got the results to the 4 week head ultrasound and his brain is perfectly normal, no bleeds etc.

So even though we have gotten to the magical 1 kg mark, he has reminded us that there is still a long way to go, like at least another 700 grams before he can come out of the isolette!!  Then he needs to start feeding but Kim's milk supply has halved all of a sudden and she is up every three hours expressing trying to build her supply back up!! She is just a wreck with all the broken sleep!!  Kim has an appointment this Friday to start nuzzle's with the lactation consultant. Hopefully he will like it as much as he likes his dummy and the nuzzling with him will boost Kim's milk supply as well.

I know I planned on making him a home made cake but I didn't get a chance. He put on weight so quick and through all the sleepless nights and working full time and trips back and forth to the hospital, I was just exhausted!! My day starts at 6 am and finishes at 10 pm, in that time we go to the hospital twice and i work full time, but poor Kim has to set the alarm to also get up every three hours to express. She is meant to get a 5 hour break during the night but the lactation consultant told her that until her supply increases she should still get up during the night every three hours.

So I got him a lovely cake from the little passtiserie downstairs from my work. The lovely ladies there wrote "1 kg Noah" on it for me and we shared it around the entire NICU, inviting all the nurses we could find that have looked after Noah since he has been there for the past month!!  Kim cut the cake as i was kangaroo cuddling Noah.

Almost there...

Well today was weigh day again and the goal is 1kg. Once Noah gets to 1kg they will only weigh him every 3rd day instead of every 2nd day. Anyway he has gained another 40 grams so he is now 920 grams! It wont be long now!

The tradition in NICU is for the parents to buy a cake to bring in to celebrate reaching 1 kg. But i'm going to try my hand at making one from scratch myself. Home made is always the best and I can't wait to decorate it! I want to always make Noah's birthday cakes as well! When I was growing up I thought that was the best part of having a birthday!! Watching mum make my cake and then getting to lick the bowl and the spoon and the beaters!

31 Weeks Old / 3 Weeks 3 days Old

I know its a bit confusing, but every Wednesday Noah gets a week older in gestation and every Sunday Noah gets a week older in age. So we keep track of both for now. Note the feeding tube has been put in his nose now. This is because there is no chance really of him having to go back on CPAP and he will need his mouth free to learn how to suck!!

Check out this photo of Noah holding his mama's chin!! It's so cute. He gets more and more coordinated and alert every day!!