Home, home, home

Such a little word, with so many meanings.  Right now, I am home.  I am in the physical dwelling where my possessions and family reside.  The place where I hang my hat.  Where my heart is.  Or at least, most of it. But, a big part of it is still 70 miles south in a darkened NICU room where my (not quite so anymore) tiny baby is waiting to come from that home to this home.  So he can be home for Christmas.  We all want to go home, and home is different for everyone.  Home from work, home from vacation, home from deployment,  home for the holidays.  HOME.  While I desperately want Finn home, it’s scary to leave the only one he’s ever known.  It’s like his birth, all over again.  Leaving a home that is safe, comfortable, reliable, and KNOWN to go to another place, that while it is safe, comfortable and reliable, it is a GREAT unknown.  A whole new set of circumstances and lessons to be learned.  A new family dynamic.  A new life that God has entrusted to US – we are so unworthy of all his blessings!

Today, we reach another milestone in the long list of NICU moments. Today, Finn’s gestational age is 36 weeks.  It’s almost funny to think I really wanted to stay on bed rest this long.  I can’t imagine STILL being in that bed.  I know I would have done it, if I could have, but God had other plans.  The last couple of days in the NICU I have heard whispers of “home.”  I had a nurse talking to me on Tuesday about signs to watch for when I am bottle feeding Finn at home.   Yesterday, my nurse asked me if we were OK if Finn had to go home on oxygen.  Later in the day, the NICU nurse manager asked me when we were going home – to which I replied, “I don’t know.  You tell me!”  The parents of our roommate asked me when we were leaving for home, and my nurse said he still has some time to serve.  But, those are all new whispers.  I am anxious to ask a doctor this weekend and see if we can narrow that down a bit.  HOME!

Meanwhile, while I am at home, I have other Mommy things to be doing.  Jake’s parent / teacher conference was last night.  We learned that while he is bright, and smart, and helpful, and caring, he has some self-control issues he needs to work on.  Like not pestering his neighbors.  Yeah, we know!  He pesters his sisters at home ALL THE TIME!  We’re working on it.  I also told his teacher he has been the baby, and treated as such, for 5 long years, and bringing Finn home may be a rude awakening for him.  While he is excited to have his baby brother home, I’m not sure Jake gets how much time and care Finn will need and how it will affect him.  Also, Emma and Lara’s 4^th grade classes are sang the Fifty Nifty states song at the Friday Assembly this morning.  It was great to be at the school and just be their mom for a minute – not worrying about a homecoming.

Finn is at a gestational age of 36 weeks today, and weighed in last night at 4 pounds 11.5 ounces. This is day 65 in the NICU.  He had 5 of his 8 feedings by bottle 2 partial by bottle, and 2 totally by gavage in the last 24 hours.  His oxygen went down slowly throughout yesterday, but is still pretty high support.  His blood work today was slightly elevated from last time, so this morning they changed the type of nasal cannula he has to see if that helps.  Depending on census in the 2 NICU wings, he may move to the “A Quad” (less critical babies – one to a room) as soon as they wean his oxygen settings some more.  After that? Home. e He

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!

2 Months Old!

Today, December 5, 2011, Mr. Finn Weaver is officially 2 months old!  WOW!  So hard to believe!  He is weighing in at 4 pounds 6 ounces, and had begun to bottle feed.  Never in a million years did I think I would  have 4 children, let alone a micro-preemie with a very long NICU stay, but, here we are!  And, as you can tell from the picture, it was time to COWBOY UP this weekend and yell ORANGE POWER as loud as we could, and Finn was in on the action as well.  So, not only do I have 4 children, my Oklahoma State University Cowboys are Big 12 Football CHAMPIONS!  What an amazing weekend!  Along with all of that, Britt and I are celebrating the 6^th anniversary of our engagement!  Best 6 years of my life.  SO GLAD God led him to me, and that I said “YES!”

Since Finn is off CPAP, he is MUCH easier to “get to,” and we can hold him much easier now.  That means, other family members can get in on the action, too!  Unfortunately, my mom is struggling through a cold, and the Big Girls were off on adventures with their Other Dad, so that left Big Brother.  And boy, was he excited!  And so good at it! And just completely precious.  Jake sang songs to Finn, talked to him, and just LOVED on him.  It was adorable!  He got to hold Finn twice on Saturday and once on Sunday, and he was (almost) as excited as Christmas morning!  I think he is going to be an EXCELLENT big brother – even though he refuses to change diapers!  ;)

When the doctor had called on Friday, she had told us that the next time we were there, we would probably be able to attempt a bottle feeding.  Unfortunately on Saturday, Finn was still tachypneic (breathing too fast), so they decided to let him have another day of getting used to breathing on his own before we tried.  While we were there for the first night shift hands on, we told our nurse that if he was showing signed of readiness, they were more than welcome to try him with a bottle!  We had been told earlier in the week they would not do the first bottle without me there, and I wanted them to know I didn’t want to be the reason he was not home by Christmas!  With me so far away, and the weather getting iffy, to go ahead!  So, Finn had his first bottle at 2 am on Sunday morning!  She said he drank some of it, but then got sleepy so she finished it through his tube.  We got there Sunday afternoon in time to try again at the 2pm feeding.  He was a bit slow, but he finished the required feeding amount in just over 30 minutes.  They only want them to try for 30 minutes, but he had just a bit left, so we got to finish.  Then, I got to try again at the 5:00 feeding.  HOLY COW!  He sucked the entire bottle dry in 20 minutes!  The nurse came back in to check on us, and she was SHOCKED!  So was I!  She said there were 5 extra cc’s in the bottle, too!  WOW!  GREAT job, Finn!

We learned that overnight they attempted one more bottle, but he was pretty tired, so they were going to finish out the night with gavage feeds to let him rest.  He HAD to be tired!  He worked so hard for Mommy yesterday!  He got his hearing checked on Saturday, and one ear failed, but that is pretty typical at this point and he will get checked again before we go home.  The eye doctor was also in on Sunday, and he is showing signs of mild ROP, but they will also keep monitoring that.  And, since he is 2 months old today, they will start with his immunizations!  He gets 3 shots over the next 3 days – with Tylenol and lots of love.  Poor little guy!  But, he’s shown himself to be quite a trooper, and I know he will do fine.  So, we need him to continue to do well with bottle feeding and get more consistent, and we are also starting to wean the percentage of oxygen that he gets through the nasal cannula.  Those are the things we need to have happened to get him home for Christmas!  Keep up the good work, Finn!