Monday, April 20, 2015

Jake has been going back and forth between the hospital and home the past two days so the girls could have more daddy time. They have missed having mom and dad and we have missed being with them! 

Baby Jacob goes up and down each day throughout the day,  which is normal for a micro preemie/23 week old baby. He has high potassium and sodium. They have to give him more fluids to dilute that a little bit and bring those levels down. His umbilical IV line was in a bad spot heading to his liver and they were worried about it and decided to change it, but there was only a 50 percent chance they could get it to the right spot and if not it would have had to do an IV in his arm and attach it to his skin which is very moist and not very accepting of tape. Fortunately they got it in the right place in the stomach and confirmed with an x-ray and it looks good.

They do chest xrays at least twice a day to look at the severity of his lung disease. So far it is looking ok and doesn't seem to be getting any worse. He also seems to be responding well to the blood transfusions, his blood pressure is very healthy and his heart rate and blood oxygen looks good. He goes through some ups and downs as far as the amount of support needed from the ventilator each day but so far everything seems pretty normal for a 23 weeker.

One other good thing we heard is that one of our nurses has seen quote, "a zillion 23 weekers in her 17 years and feels like they have a pretty good success rate with him here at this hospital." The U has the top 10% of premi successes in the country.

Overall things are going as well as they can. We keep finding out more information each day. He's made it through the first 48 hours,  which is big. We will have to keep watching and waiting to find out what other complications may arise as they are able to do more testing.

Thank you for all your love and prayers.

Love,  Jeanne & Jake