Nathan - Day 5

Nathan has had great progress over the past 24 hours.

Nathan's endotracheal ventilator tube was removed Thursday. He has returned to assisted breathing with the CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) which puts slightly pressurized air into his nose. The CPAP requires him to take his own breaths and the pressurized air keeps his lung capillaries slightly inflated so they don't collapse. The oxygen push through the CPAP has been reduced to 21%, which is what you and I breath through regular air.

He occasionally has "apnea of prematurity" which is where he temporarily stops breathing. They are giving him caffeine as a stimulant to help him remember to breath. The "stops breathing" description sounds worse than it really is. It usually lasts only a few seconds and he typically recovers on his own or with a touch or tap from the nurse. Virtually all babies born prior to 34 weeks gestation have this condition and it typically resolves itself as he progresses.

His bloodwork tests are trending positively so they have removed his arterial line that was put into his umbilical cord artery. They drew the blood for all of his blood tests through that line. Future blood tests will be less frequent and will be taken from his foot.

Due to that line tap in his umbilical artery, holding him caused a risk of damaging the line causing bleeding. With the artery line removed I was finally able to hold him, 5 days after delivery.

Thursday he took a test of taking breast milk that was injected through a tube directly into his stomach. He had decent digestive rates of the milk, so Friday he was put on a continuous feed that is currently pushing 2cc of milk per hour. Over the next 7 - 10 days he is expected to learn how to fully digest and get all of his nutrition from the milk. At that point they will remove the other line that is in his umbilical cord. That other line is in an umbilical vein that sends nutrients to him just like the umbilical cord did. As he develops later he will be put on a feeding schedule instead of a continuous feed.

We appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers. We still have a long way to go, but things are progressing very well at this time.

Nathan's Aunt Samantha came to visit him in the NICU.

Nathan trying to sleep.

Mommy's first diaper change.

First time I got to hold Nathan. He was so light, it just felt like I was holding a blanket.

Mommy and Daddy visiting Nathan.