5 Weeks Old

The sound of alarms on the monitors at the NICU, the vibrating of the oscillator keeping Alex alive, the drone of the breast pump, every step on the way to the hospital. These constant repetitions are tying the minutes and hours into weeks. The days are blurring together, and I continually find myself counting repetitions, realizing I've been counting after a few minutes, and completely unable to stop myself. It started after I had gone into labor, and the nurses were tracking Alex's heart rate with a continuous doppler.

I sometimes find myself agitated by the alarms and the relentless repetition all around me, but in the last few weeks I've realized how comforting it has become to have a constancy, no matter how insignificant. The sounds of the alarms and the pump, seeing the vibrations on Alex's chest, watching him try to breathe on his own are somehow bringing a measure of peace.

Our Tiny Family

Alex has been improving very slowly over the last couple weeks. He went back on a high frequency ventilator called the Jet when he first got sick/worn out at Thanksgiving, and since then has shifted to the Oscillator, which is another high frequency ventilator. He's had a full course of antibiotics, and IV, and a couple of transfusions in that time. Each day we've hoped for awesome news, and when it starts to look up for a shift of nurses or two, he's gone back to about where he was. They've tried to wean him off of the ventilator twice by putting him on the Conventional Ventilator, which gives him full breaths instead of small and rapid puffs of air, but each time he hasn't liked it, and they put him back on the Oscillator.

While we're incredibly grateful to these machines for keeping our little man alive, they can be quite damaging to the lungs, so we're hoping he'll be able to get off of them soon, and back to the Vapotherm, which uses the nasal cannula instead of a tube into his lungs. He appears like he's trying so hard to breathe on his own, and we can tell that he's ready to be rid of the tube, emotionally at least.

First time to be clothed! Tiny little onesie.

Of course, our little man has been improving in other areas, and still makes his mommy and daddy proud each day. He's put on a pound in the last couple of weeks, which has doubled his size! He's got a bit of a double chin now, and looks much healthier. He's currently at 2 lbs 6 oz. Makes a big difference for our little guy. This is the main thing that will help him, to outgrow the problems with his lungs. He is still tolerating his feedings really well. He has a tube that goes into his bowels (instead of his tummy for now, to prevent such frequent reflux that was likely getting into his trachea), and is getting the fortified milk (mom's milk) continuously.

Getting his weight and getting his bed changed

Best part of the day for Daddy

In the past week, we've gotten to hold Alex a couple of times, which has been great. We had gotten used to it in his first couple weeks of life, but then we went another couple of weeks without holding him, so it has been a special treat. It takes two nurses and a dad to hold all the cords and transfer baby over to his mommy, and he's had to be all bundled up, but we love the time with him regardless.

Of course Alex has had many little baths, but we got to participate for the first time this week!

Each bath he gets all of his monitor tabs washed off of his chest, belly, legs and feet. Fun to see him without all of the wires for awhile. Poor little man didn't love his bath. He was thrashing about like crazy.

All warmed up and snuggled in a hot towel. It took awhile to get the worried look off of his face. 

After his bath he was doing well, but needed some time with Mommy to calm down after his crazy bath. This was skin-to-skin (but really it was just his cheek on my chest).

We sure do love this little guy! Even with all the worrying and the ups and downs that are becoming a constant, he brings so much joy into our life.

He's a bit swollen from a transfusion and some IV fluids, but look how big he looks in this picture! He's really filling out and looking great.