The Murray Brothers: "Welcome to the life of a preemie"

"Welcome to the life of a preemie"

That was the phrase of today. It is a common phrase that I've heard over the past 26 days, but was in stereo today!

Last night and early morning Hudson had six BRADY's.
((Definition of BRADYCARDIA (BRADY) - any decrease in the baby's heart rate below 100 beats per minute that lasts longer than 15 seconds and requires stimulation to correct. It happens less often as the baby matures.))

This was unusual behavior for him, so the doctors looked at several different things.

possible infection - they took blood culture and urine culture to see, they went ahead and started him on an antibiotic to be proactive.
chest x-ray - his x-ray showed that his lungs weren't as expanded as the doctors would have liked to have seen so they made some adjustments to the machine he is on, so now he's getting more of a "SiPAP" instead of a "CPAP" to help him not work so hard and burn excess calories.

And then later this morning his nurse pulled the food off his stomach to see how he was digesting and he had 20ml in his stomach. Which was not a good thing because he wasn't digesting like he needed to. He was getting 9ml an hour and they check his stomach every 4 hours. So he had just over 2 hours worth of food on his stomach. The doctors stopped his feeding for 3 hours. They resumed feedings at 3ml per hour. But shortly after noon care his day nurse pulled the contents off his stomach and it was not the color we'd been used to seeing. She paged for the doctor to come look at him. One of the fellow's took a look at him, listened to his bowel sounds and poked around on his belly. She said for the nurse to monitor him and if it continues or gets worse to let her know. The doctor said that with the changes to his breathing machine, a possible infection or just his stomach had so much bile in it or a combination of them could cause the contents to be the color that they were. Next two times the nurse did it, the color was still a little off but more normal to the usual. Because they went down on his feeds they started him back on the TPN. ((Definition of TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) - an IV solution (often yellow) that contains nutrients to help a baby grow. TPN is used when a baby is not able, or is just starting to feed.)) They started him back on that because they need to give him extra calories so he doesn't exhaust himself with keeping his lungs open that he Brady's.

Hudson did gain weight again, he's back up to 3lbs 5oz. ((3 more ounces and he gets to wear clothes!))

Hudson and I also snuggled this afternoon. He did really well with it today, so well we went a little over 3 hours:) He did great and I wasn't about to let him go! He kept scratching my chest like he was trying to grab on to something (and it hurt, he's a strong lil booger)...then I remembered...He'd been snuggling with Ben for the past 2 days so he's used to grabbing on to hair!

Nonetheless, I heard throughout my time next to his bed today...this is the life of a preemie.

I have good days and not so good days with remembering to take pictures, eating, sleeping, etc. So, enjoy a few of my memories from today:)