The thing about a roller coaster is…

...What goes up MUST come down.   I am sitting by my son’s bedside on this cold Wednesday morning, getting in my cuddle time and just being awed by God's grace.  It was 18 degrees in Oklahoma City when I got up early this morning.  BRRRRR!  It was a frigid drive in to the hospital, but I was really looking forward to getting here to see my 4 pound 10 ounce, 16.25 inch long ROCK STAR miracle baby boy! Handsome Finn earned his rock star status from the day nurses yesterday when he took all 4 of his day time bottles through a nipple!  And did it so well for such a little guy who had been on a ventilator for so long!  The Nurse Practitioner told me that that being on a vent so long usually causes some oral aversion that makes it hard to learn nippling.  Our Finn caught on right away!  But, as things go in the NICU, it was not a straight forward journey to get to that point.

When I last blogged Monday morning, we were riding the high from an AMAZING weekend.  Finn had a GREAT Sunday, and a good overnight.  But, Monday he struggled.  He couldn’t keep his oxygen saturation up, he was super sleepy (which was probably to be expected since he worked SO HARD on Sunday), and he was just generally having a rough day.  I stayed in Stillwater during the day on Monday to do some business, so I didn’t get to the hospital until about 6:30pm.  When the night shift started, the charge nurse basically told me we started Finn too early on the bottles, and that we would have to wait another week (!) for him to get going on the nipple feeds again.  I didn’t right then, but later when I was holding him, I cried.  I hadn’t done that in a long time. When I told Britt the news, here is what he wrote on Finn’s community page Facebook wall:

The immunization issue was that the night nurse told Britt she had already administered the shot, then when he called the day nurse to check in, she said she was about to do it.  When questioned, she said it wasn’t charted if the night nurse had actually done it.  He told the day nurse not to do ANYTHING until she was sure the night nurse hadn't done it.  A follow up phone call a while later revealed the night nurse had done it, and had charted it, it was just not where the day nurse expected it.  In the meantime, Finn has not had the other 2 immunizations yet, as the hospital has run out of needles.  Yeah, me either.  I have no idea.  I just hope they get it solved soon!

SO BUMMED (about the bottles)!  We had so much promise fed to us since he did so well with those first few bottles! I left the NICU about 9 that night, and went to stay with my friends here in the city.   I didn’t sleep well, and I was just FRUSTRATED! But I got up early and got to the hospital, knowing I could hold my little man.  When I got here, the night nurse, the day nurse, AND the night charge nurse greeted me at his bedside.  At first, I was a little shocked and scared, but they were all smiley and happy.  The story they told was that basically, Finn had the “POOP OF THE CENTURY” overnight!  He had a full bath at 11 with new bedding and new clothes, and after that poop display in the wee hours – which filled 5 diapers, weighed 100 grams, got on the wall, the bed, and the Vapotherm (machine that heats and humidifies the oxygen) – he got ANOTHER full bath, new bedding and new clothes.  WHEW!  And, the best news was, after he got all that out, he was doing SO MUCH BETTER!  All of his numbers improved, as did his mood and attitude!  SO PROUD of him!  So, the charge nurse told our day nurse to go ahead and try a bottle at 8 to see how it goes.

8:00am – drank it all in about 20 minutes.  11:00am – drank it all in less than 10 minutes.  2:00pm – drank it all in about 15 minutes.  5:00pm – drank it all in about 20 minutes.  All of these feedings were with no de-sats, and minimal episodes of tachypnea.  Those were his 4 day feedings.  Thus, ROCK STAR!  8:00pm – drank it all, but it was slower and l could tell he was pretty tired.  The night nurse had pretty good success as well; she got him to take the 11:00 bottle, and most of the 2:00am and 5:00am bottles – had to finish them through the tube.  This morning, he took about ½ of his 8:00am bottle for me, but he is super tired!  He had blood work this morning as well, so he has to be worn out.  His nurse and I have decided that we won’t even try a bottle at 11:00, just to let him rest a bit!  All the nurses are so impressed with him – as well as his Doctors and the Nurse Practitioners.  ROCK STAR!

So, here we are, back on track again for a Christmas homecoming.  I have taken to using the hash tag “#homeforchristmas” on Twitter when I tweet about Finn’s progress.  Helps me keep the goal in mind!  Bottle feeding is going well, so now we need to continue with good days, good growth, and weaning the oxygen he is on.  Since I have been here this morning, his oxygen percentage has gone down 10% - that’s GREAT since it didn’t move at all yesterday!  One thing at a time, right?  Go, Finn, GO!  My little Rock Star!