Webre Family News Journal

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Alden Update 7/4 part 2

I wasn't able to hold Alden tonight, but he is doing okay. He just hasn't been quite stable enough and they didn't feel like he was ready. But we still went and said hello and we saw him with his eyes open! ... for like 10 seconds. Haha. But still... That doesn't happen very often. Wish I would've gotten a picture! He is a sleepy fella, since he's fighting the pneumonia and also has been on sedatives on and off.

The doctor ordered a "7 day watch" which, turns out, is just the amount of time he's supposed to remain on antibiotics, and the minimum amount of time he has left in the NCU. Could be longer but we'll continue to pray that he improves quickly and can come home when his antibiotics are done.

Alden Update 7/4

I got to hold Alden last night and the girls got to meet him for the first time!

It was wonderful to be with him, but unfortunately when I went back to hold him again this morning, they wouldn't let me. Apparently, right after we left last night he started to really struggle. The nurse was quite worried and called his doctor in while they did an X-ray, expecting that there would be air-pockets and they'd have to insert a catheter in his chest again. Luckily, the x ray still looked good (minus the pneumonia) and he started to calm down shortly after the doctor arrived. This morning they tried turning down his oxygen a notch and he didn't tolerate it well, so they thought it best that we leave him alone for a bit.

They said if he does well today I should try holding him later tonight. I'm so torn because here they are encouraging me to hold him and do skin-to-skin, but at the same time they're telling me how hard it is on him when he's moved in and out of bed. I WANT to hold him but I don't want to bug him if it's going to cause another episode like last night! I just want him to get better and come home, dang it.

Anyway, that's where we're at.

Monday, July 3, 2017

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.

Friday, June 30, 2017

Baby DeLong News

Heather had her baby boy today with a scheduled C-Section. He was born at 1:08pm coming in at a whopping 9lbs 7oz and 21 inches long. The operation went smoothly with the exception of the baby's head being large enough making it difficult to get out.

The baby has had to go the NICU due to having too much fluid in his lungs. They have hooked him up to the CPAP machine to cycle more air through his lungs to help dry up some of the fluid. It could take a matter of hours or a day or two to get the needed results. Heather and I are a little bummed that we can't hold him while he is on the machine.

Heather is recovering well. She is experiencing a little bit of nausea and itchiness due to her medications. She has pumped already and has gotten a lot of milk! The nurses were very impressed.

Keep us in your prayers and I'm sure everything will turn out just fine. We will keep you posted.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Baby DeLong #3 Guesses

If you want to guess what the baby's weight, length, and time of birth will be, do it now :)

We are scheduled for surgery tomorrow at 12:30 so I'm guessing it will be somewhere pretty close to that time.

Winner in each category gets a frosty! ;) After our basement is finished (Our blinds just went in and they are installing carpet right now!), that is all we'll be able to afford.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Cook Happenings

I think many of you have probably seen and or heard that we now have a cute little garden (raised beds) growing and chickens that will probably be laying eggs in a month!! That's probably the biggest news from our house.

Josh spent HOURS and hours building the coop. I helped a little. :)

Clara is a fun girl. Her newest favorite food is avocado. She will eat half an avocado a day. She is also a bit obsessed with rice cakes and her favorite music is ENYA and piano guys. She calms down immediately every time when she is upset in the car and we put on enya. She likes dancing to the piano guys.

We also went camping with the Webre's up Spanish Fork Canyon this weekend and that was fun! Clara didn't do great overnight but we survived. She loved walking around the campground and collecting rocks, sticks, etc. The campground had a fun river that Jason did some fishing in and caught a few! (Katie has a lot more cute pics that I'm sure she will post on her blog)

I've had a nasty barky cough for about three weeks now. I really hope it goes away ASAP. So far Joshua and Clara have escaped this terrible cough, let's hope it stays that way.

Mom came to visit me Friday while she was down for a cabin trip. It was so nice to have another adult around during the day! We visited Rowley's Red Barn and got a yummy caramel apple and flavored popcorn.