Little bugger

Jacob is continuing to do well and is now up to 2 lb 9 oz! He is still on his full feeds and doing well with the CPAP.

Unfortunately, the little bugger has dicovered that the annoying feeling he has in his throat is his feeding tube. He has now learned how to yank it out and the nurse reinserted it 4 times the other night until they gave up and put it back in his nose. She said in some ways it is good because he is starting to become more aware of what is going on around him and he is learning that when he pulls the tube out that feeling disappears.

He is well on his way to 3 pounds and hopefully in a few days he will get there! More to come in a couple of days!

My preemie the celebrity...

I don't have too much to report this weekend. Jacob is weighing in at 2 lb 7 oz and has now maxed out on the calories they have been adding to his breastmilk (fortifier). At this point, they will start adding protein to boost it some more. The NP warned us that the protein makes the babies gassy and he may start to stink!

They tried weaning Jacob off the CPAP end of last week and he wasn't having it. His baseline is currently 6 cm of pressure and they tried weaning him down to 5 cm. Once he does good on 5 cm it is on to nasal cannula. Well, he basically told them to take a hike and went back up to 6 cm. The nurse said expect him to stay there for another 2 weeks before they try again because they don't want to push him.

Jacob is famous! Well....his foot is famous. Check out the link below to Boston.com. They did an article on extreme preemies in Boston Globe Magazine and Jacob was their subject. They wanted to interview me for the magazine, but they expected me to get up at 6 AM to be at the hospital by 9 AM! No thanks....especially when I have to stay there until 7:30 PM! They also videotaped Jacob last week for a public service announcement for Tufts Medical Center and the Floating Hospital for Children. Unfortunately, you will only see this if you live in Lowell.

That's all for now! Hopefully I will have more mid-week.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/04/27/extreme_preemies/

No more PICC line!!

Jacob has had his PICC line removed and is no longer receiving IV fluids! He is on full feeds (19 cc's of breastmilk boosted with human fortifier 8x a day) and they are starting to wean him off the CPAP. He has been decreased from 6 cm of pressure to 5 cm!

He is still around 2 lb 6 oz give or take a few grams in either direction, but should start heading towards 3 pounds shortly with the feeds he is getting.

More news to come this weekend!No

Removing the PICC line

Wow! What a day!

Jacob is up to 2 lb 6 oz as of last night. He is on full feeds which they are boosting with human fortifier to give him some extra calories and nutrients. The IV has been stopped and his PICC line is still in, but will be taken out tomorrow morning if all goes well tonight.

The Chief of Newborn Medicine came in to talk to me today and said they are working on getting him on the nasal cannula in the next FEW DAYS. For those of you who don't know, the nasal cannula is just the two prongs in the nose which supply oxygen. At the rate he is going, he could be transferred in no time which would be great for Ian and me. Jordan Hospital is 10 minutes away and parking is free so it would be a huge help to have him close to home and not draining our bank account!

That is all for today! As Kip would say....peace out.

Still on CPAP!!

72 hours and counting! Jacob is still on CPAP and amazingly when we arrived today he was only on 25% oxygen! He will be at room oxygen once he gets down to 21% which means the machine is only applying continuous pressure to keep his air sacs slightly inflated. He is doing the rest of the work all by himself!

The Nurse Practitioner came in today and told us he is doing fabulous and if he hasn't had any problems with CPAP yet he probably won't! She said they will have him up to full feeds (14cc's, 8 times a day) by tomorrow morning (he is currently on 11cc's at the moment) and as soon as he gets there they will take out his PICC line and stop his IV! As of last night, he is up to 2 lb 5oz and he gained 14 grams and 20 grams the past two days which are great (normal) weight gains. It looks like it might not take much longer to reach our goal of 3 pounds! Stay tuned!

New Pics

Check out Jacob's new photo shoot!

He has been on CPAP for over two full days and he is doing awesome! His feeds are increasing and he gained 14 grams yesterday which they said is a more normal weight gain. He also is now on a pacifier and loves it (see pic).

That's all for today!

Jacob's first go at CPAP

I have been holding off on posting until Jacob was all sorted out from his rough weekend and he is just starting to pick up again now. It took him longer than I expected to recover from his collapse on Saturday.

Jacob did hit 2 pounds on Monday night, but because of the rough weekend he had his feeds were stopped on Saturday night so he has had no breastmilk since then. I was a little nervous that he had hit 2 pounds without feeds since it obviously is all fluid that is causing the weight gain. I was more alarmed when he hit 2 lb 5 oz the next day and 2 lbs 9 oz the day after that!!! The nurses have assured me that since he is still peeing non-stop that they are not that alarmed and he will lose the fluid. Even so, 10 oz in a matter of 4 days is alarming so I have been a little on edge, but I called this morning and he is down between 2 lb 3 oz and 2 lb 4 oz so it looks like they were right.

The good, scratch that, FABULOUS news is that Jacob has been off his ventilator and on the CPAP now for 17 hours and so far so good!! This is huge! The longer that ventilator is in there the worse off he is as far as his lungs and breathing problems go. When he went on it last night at 5 PM the nurse warned us that when we called this morning he might be back on the ventilator so not to be alarmed. She said when they are this small they usually can handle it for about 12 hours the first time until they say, "ok I've had enough" and need to go back on the vent. It has been 17 though and Mr. Tough Pants is stubbornly refusing to budge. This kid amazes me! The nurses have been saying how good he is doing considering how small he is and the fact that he has pulled his breathing tube out multiple times now is a testament to his strength. They said babies this little and premature should not have the ability to lift their heads, but you should see this kid pull his head up and yank as hard as he can to dislodge that thing which is another reason I am glad it is out! We will keep our fingers crossed, but it may be that in a few hours he might need the vent again and we may go back and forth for days or even weeks, but the fact that it has been out this long is definitely going to help his lungs in the long run.

Ian and I are heading up later this afternoon. I was a little nervous to be there when he came off the vent and went on CPAP because every time they do something like this to him and he has a hard time I panic and end up crying the whole day so I figured this time I would stay away until it was all over.

They are restarting his feeds today so hopefully in no time Jacob will be 3 pounds! That is my next goal!