Ok, here's the reason....

I haven't had the heart to post in here until now. It was broken. Kim and I split up. I wont go into the reasons behind it on here. I tried to live with Kim and Noah for a few months after the split but it did not work out.  I moved out and Kim and I are now co-parenting very well and I have Noah every weekend and see him through the week as much as I can.

Noah has been exceptional. He has been on the up and up and has just turned 1. We last weighed him in May and he was 5 kgs.  I know that sounds weird...but we have stopped obsessing about his weight now.  We know he is gaining weight. He keeps growing and he is chubbier. He is on solids, he still wakes up once a night. He has just cut two teeth, (eye teeth, looks so funny) and he is sitting up, crawling, cruising furniture, pulling himself up on everything, just about to walk. 

Here are a few photos to update you all:

This Little Piggy!

Just a quick update:  Noah weighed in at 2840 grams this week! So he is now over 6 pounds!!! His eyes are great, dont have to go back for two weeks as the ROP is resolving in both eyes now! He got over his little upset tummy and doesn't seem to be refluxing anymore, so i think it was just getting used to the formula.  His pooing is getting more regular but we are still giving him a little bit of brown sugar in water if its been a while. Works a treat!

This morning we were singing "This little piggy.." to him and he smiled for the first time in front of both Kim and I so today is a day to remember! Speaking of little piggies, he has drank just over 500 mls today and he will probably have at least 75mls more before the night is out!

Life for Noah can only get better now! Yay!

Noah's First Christmas!

We had a great Christmas Day, Noah was spoilt, as predicted, but nothing ridiculous, just nice. We had Nana and Poppy Bill here as well as my brother Colin and his Wife Annie and my two nephews, Matthew and Jeremy. It was a nice day, rainy, so it wasn't hot which is the usual on Christmas Day. Noah was spoiled from Nana as my mum stayed for a few days over Christmas, which I think she enjoyed alot as well as giving us a hand with him.

Noah has been put onto formula now as we started to run low on breast milk in the freezer and so we slowly put him onto the bottle.  He is having a little reflux and bowel problems, we hope it is just him adjusting to the formula. He has gone back to having trouble pooing and he has vomited a few times and belly aches for a long time after a feed. We think he has a little bit of reflux. Sometimes we think he has silent relux as well, because we see him sort of dry heave, then screw up his little fast like he has tasted something really bad, then he cries like he is some pain.

We gave him some brown sugar and water for his pooing pains and that did the trick again! We are trying to feed him as upright as possible and then keep him as upright as possible for half and hour after his feed and letting him drink want he wants often instead of trying to make him have it. He put on 130 grams in the last week so now he is 5 pounds 10 ounces, or 2550 grams!!

We dont seem to be free from some minor ailment of a sort tho. Maybe this is just what all babies go through. He went from constipation to diarrohea and cramping to constipation, vomiting, reflux. To top it all off he had to go on antibiotics because he was exposed to Whopping Cough at the Eye Clinic the other day. He was not in contact with it, but just to be on the safe side they put all the babies on them just in case. He has approx. 40% protection with his first vaccinations and we managed to give him 4 days of antibiotics and that was enough. It had been 13 days since his exposure and he had no symptoms and his side effects were so bad with the upset tummy and diarrohea that we took him off it. He's been alot better for it.

Anyway, we seem to be doing okay with the upright thing at the moment, we'll just have to see what happens. Other than that he has been really really cute in his bouncer. We proped him up a bit so he could just reach the toys, and he has been trying to swipe at them and does it over and over and looks pleased with himself! He is very alert and looking around alot and looking at us and tracking us with his eyes. Which I meant to say have been given a good report from the opthalmologist. His ROP is nearly resolved in one eye and the other eye is Stage 1 Zone 3 so it is resolving as well, which was the best Christmas present ever for all of us!!

Since he's been home...

Well the lovely Noah has been a good boy really. He had his first paediatrician appointment after 10 days home and unfortunately he had only gained 40 grams. The doc wanted kim to stop breastfeeding and put him on formula, mainly so we could measure exactly what he was drinking and make sure he was getting enough. Kim reminded him that we had a deep freezer full of expressed breast milk at home, so he said that was ideal. Bottle feed him the breast milk. After 3 days of doing this he gained 100 grams!

The doctor also found that Noah had an Inguinal Hernia and sent us straight away to a paediatric surgeon. That was on a Friday and on the Monday he was in theatre for 30 mins having an operation. But he came through that without any hiccups and two little cuts on his lower belly about a cm each. He only had a hernia on one side but the surgeon decided to do both sides just in case with all his straining to poo he popped the other side as well.

He really picked up after the operation with his feeding as well so he is now 2430 grams!! Finally broke the 5 pound barrier!!! He is looking so adorable and is just a delight to have around. He is so cute, everyone says so!! At the moment he is having a little trouble bringing up his wind, so we rang the doctor and he is on colic drops every second feed at the moment, started those last night.

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!!