Alden Update 7/3

Here's a run down of what's been going on with Alden since he was born.

During the C-Section, I heard the doctor exclaim a few times "He has a huge noggin!" They were having a hard time getting him out. They tried a vacuum, made my incision a couple inches longer, and in the end had to use forceps to pull him out. I watched them clean him up and as they were wheeling us out to the recovery room, they noted that he looked a little bit blue, but didn't seem extremely concerned. In recovery I asked to hold him skin to skin and my nurse started to look a little worried, noticing that he looked QUITE blue and a little pale. So she called in the respiratory therapist (I think?) and they took him away to the NCU. 

A few minutes later they came back and explained that he was having a little trouble breathing, they were going to hook him to to the CPAP machine (blow a little air into his lungs) and they told us that 60% of babies only needed an hour on this machine and then they'd be fine. Of course, Alden was in the 40% and they kept him in the NCU for further treatment.

So day one, Friday, they had him on Oxygen and the CPAP to dry out the excess fluid in his lungs. They said he'd be in the NCU for 2-4 days. Saturday he appeared to be improving rapidly. They'd actually removed his tubes, CPAP and oxygen and he seemed to be holding his own. We both got to hold him and it was wonderful!

Saturday night he started to struggle a little more to keep his Oxygen levels up, so they decided to put him back on a low-flow oxygen cannula.

Sunday the poor little guy started heading the wrong direction. He was having to work too hard to keep his levels up, needing the supplemental oxygen and still breathing pretty rapidly. They discovered in an X-ray that he had a pneumothorax, a small hole in his lung that was leaking air into his chest cavity. The air pocket can become quite serious if it continues to grow because it can put pressure on the lung and keep it from expanding fully, it can also start to shift the lung and heart toward the other side of the chest. So they told us that either Alden's body would sort of heal itself and reabsorb that air bubble, or they would have to essentially poke him in the ribs and insert a catheter to release the air.

Sunday evening his doctor decided that the latter procedure was necessary. And....It was a little awful.. but luckily they gave him morphine and a sedative and he seemed not to be too distressed. It went well, they drew out 10 mL of air and he seemed to receive instant relief. Yay! They told us that they would monitor him and if the air continued to leak from the lung then they would have to life-flight him to Ogden where they would insert a chest tube. 

This morning, Monday, the X ray showed positive results. The air pockets were much smaller and they had turned down his supplemental oxygen a bit... They're feeding him my milk (through a tube) every few hours, and they're starting to wean him off of his IV. They think he has some pneumonia which they're treating with antibiotics. They removed the catheter from his chest and now they just want to give him rest and time to heal, but did give me permission to start holding him skin-to-skin every 12 hours.

Of course, the whole experience has been a bit of a disappointment. We have spent the day at home today, which has been nice, but I am a bit of a hormonal mess and missing my sweet baby. Feeling weird that I am home without him. Totally didn't expect any of this to happen! But I guess nobody ever does. Looking forward to holding him again tonight (for the third time, ever) and feeling so blessed to know that, in time, he'll be just fine and joining our family here at home.

Thank you, everyone, for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers! We love you and feel blessed to have such a supportive network of family and friends.

We'll keep posting here on this blog to try to keep everyone updated. But no news is good news. You can expect that he'll simply continue to rest and improve each day until he comes home.