Postponed :(

I know...I know, it's been over a week since the last time I posted anything. It's been a busy week. Aiden is doing good, we are patiently waiting for his surgery which has been postponed until Wednesday 3/4. The surgeon that did his original surgery wants to do the reconnection also and he is not available this week. We were upset to have to wait, but at least we know the doctor and are comfortable with him, after all he saved Aiden's life once before. We still don't know if he will do the hernia repair at the same time, we are hoping he will so that Aiden doesn't have to have another surgery and go back on the ventilator a second time - once is plenty!

All cleaned up after his bath on Sunday

"No...you cannot take my binky"

Aiden is still getting 5-10 mls of milk by bottle 4 times a day in addition to his continual feeds of 14 mls an hour. He is getting much better at bottle feeding and is able to pace himself a little more and remember to keep breathing while he is swallowing. He is still having alot of output, but the only fix for that is the surgery and he is still gaining weight good. Last night he was 4 lbs. 13 oz.

This past Saturday was Aiden's baby shower and we have been busy putting all of his goodies away, we officially have everything he needs to come home and boy are we ready! A big thank you to my wonderful sister, sister in law and mother for making his shower so special, and thank you to everyone who came and spoiled little Aiden :) Jeremy spent the last couple days building him a closet organizer so we have plenty of storage and a place for everything, now Aiden really does have a nicer room than we do!

Wednesday's bath night photo

Last night we took an infant CPR class at the hospital and then gave Aiden his Wednesday bath. He still loves bath time and we love that it makes us feel like "real" parents. After his bath I dressed him up all cute in a little outfit and matching hat that Aunt Lisa gave him for Christmas, Jeremy fed him and then we tucked him into bed. He is such a good little boy, he barely cries - just lets out a little complaint now and then. His due date was also on Saturday, so he is officially a term baby! He also turned 3 months old on Monday. He is getting to be such a big boy!

Is that a bottle I see?

On Monday morning Aiden's doctor called to give a routine update and I mentioned to her that I was concerned that he wasn't bottle feeding yet and worried that he was being set back too far in the feeding area by waiting for his surgery. I mentioned to her that I thought he was getting milk during our breastfeeding sessions also. She decided to give Aiden a chance to prove his bottle feeding abilities/tolerance this week. He has been getting 2 bottles a day since Monday - only 5 mls in each bottle, but it gives him good practice. Today she said he was doing so well on the bottle that they are going to give him 4 bottles a day! We fed him his first bottle Monday night and I fed him again today. He is actually pretty good at it, he does have to be reminded to pace himself and I just tilt the bottle down so he stops getting milk and remembers to breathe. He really enjoys it and burps like a big boy afterwards :)

This is Aiden getting his bottle...

This is what happens after Aiden gets his bottle...

And this is what happens when momma stays at the NICU too long late at night :)

He weighs 4 lbs. 7 oz. and has finally been gaining steady weight - about an ounce a night. He saw the surgeon yesterday and we were told his surgery is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. The sooner the better! He will be transferred back to Sutter the day before his surgery and stay there 5-7 days before being transferred back to Mercy.

He is almost a full term baby and all the nurses and the physical therapist say he is a VERY social baby. They have actually turned him around in his incubator so he is not facing the wall so that he can watch everyone in the room. The nurses also taped some black and white pictures of shapes up in this incubator so that he has something to look at. He loves his awake time, loves it when people talk to him and really loves it when people hold him. We can't wait to bring him home where he will have lots of social time with mom & dad!

Sunday is bath night...

Every Sunday and Wednesday are Aiden's bath nights, today we asked to do it early since we are spending a rainy night at home. He still gets just a sponge bath until his surgery, but boy will he love real baths - he loves the warm water. After his bath was done and his hair was washed daddy brushed his hair...

All cleaned up and ready to get tucked into bed!

Look at his hand - he is trying to help (or trying to get daddy to stop...ha ha)

The little white board on his hand is keeping his IV in place, he is on day 5 of 10 of some powerful antibiotics to get rid of the drug resistant bacteria that they found last week. His blood work all came back fine and the bacteria is just in his urine, so he has a urinary tract infection. Which I guess is better than in the blood! The poor guy HATES having that board on his hand since he loves to put his hands in his mouth. He also has a hard time getting comfy while kangaroo-ing with that thing on. He can't have his surgery until his infection is completely gone, which I understand, but am so tired of hearing the doctors say "hopefully next week". I want our little one to be on the road to recovery, the road home :)

He is 4 lbs. 4 oz. now, he is filling out more everyday. They are still watching his feedings and output very carefully and are adding "microlipids" to his milk to further fatten him up. I am still doing recreational breastfeeding with him and the other day I think he got quite a bit of milk, I was impressed that he was sucking, swallowing and breathing so well. Preemies have a hard time with that. Afterwards he let out a giant burp! Hopefully it is getting him geared up to bottle feed (after his surgery) and he can stop being fed by tube.

It's been a tough week with lots of testing for Aiden because of his infection and the nurses and doctors thought he might have developed a heart issue, but after several tests they determined there was nothing. It gave mom and dad something to worry about for a couple days though! Momma's had her own health scare this week, too - so we are hoping for a quiet week to come!

Not another one!

Well, Little Mr. Nicolls has another infection going on. They repeated his bloodwork from last week and it shows further elevated inflammation/infection levels so they had to start him on antibiotics and do more blood & urine cultures to see what type of infection he has. They test mostly to rule out the bad ones like sepsis and meningitis. It could also be that the bacteria they found last week in his urine has actually infected him. So, the nurse had to start an IV on him and he will be on antibiotics for at least 10 days. The poor kid, he just can't seem to catch a break...he has luck like his momma.

He is still up and down on his weight, he is around 4 lbs. 1 oz. and the doctor is still waiting to hear back from Sutter and the surgeon to set a surgery date, but with the new infection he might have to wait a little bit longer than we were hoping. We are all ready for him to be put back together again!

He also got his eyes examined again this morning and is still showing only very mild stage 1 ROP (retinopathy of prematurity - a disorder where the blood vessels in the eye grow abnormally). There are 5 stages of ROP (5 is the worst) and some cases require laser surgery and in some cases it can cause blindness. Luckily for Aiden, his should not effect him.

Yesterday he gave his momma a heart attack and decided to pull his feeding tube up so that some of his milk got into his lungs. He started choking and his O2 saturation went way down, when the RTs and nurse went to check on him they found his tube up but were able to stabilize his O2 again. They took x-rays to make sure it didn't do any damage to his lungs and it looked OK. I hate that feeding tube. Because he is on continuous feedings if he pulls it it can get into lungs and cause alot of damage - he could even die from milk getting into his lungs. We can't wait until it is out or at least until he is on milk every 3 hours when they can check the tube before feeding him. The funny thing is after that little incident he has been requiring less O2 - today he was at 28% and they moved him from 3 liters to 2 liters per minute...go figure! The tube still freaks me out though!

He loves his binky!

Hangin' out on daddy...

The nurses have been more relaxed about the gown and glove rule, so it hasn't been as bad as it was the first day. I only wear gloves when I change his diaper and we wear cloth gowns which are not as bad as the plastic was. We have even snuck in the camera :)

Are we there yet????

It's been a week since I have posted and we are starting to get phone calls and emails wondering what is wrong :) Everything is fine, Jeremy has been sick with a cold and I have been down at the hospital ALOT this week. Aiden is doing just fine although he does have some new issues that have come up. He does have a hernia on the left side of his abdomen that will most likely get fixed after he comes home.

He had a routine blood and urine test done earlier this week and it showed some elevated levels and a possible infection beginning so they did some further cultures on him. He has been acting fine and has actually been more alert than usual so I was pretty sure nothing was wrong, however one of his test came back showing a bacteria in his urine that is fairly resistant to antibiotics. The doctors are seeing no sign that he is actually "infected" with this bacteria but rather he is carrying it. They are not going to treat him for it but, since it is something that can be passed to other babies poor little Aiden is now on lockdown and we have to wear a plastic gown and gloves and were told we could not touch him. They will keep checking his urine to see if it goes away or becomes an infection, but most likely he will just keep carrying it and we will have to have restrictions for the rest of the time he is in the hospital (5-6 more weeks).

Naturally, the no touching rule is not sitting well with us. The plastic gown is like a heater and Aiden was slipping around while we were trying to hold him. The plastic gloves were the worst part. Normally, we touch Aiden's head to comfort him, but now instead of being comforted, he squirms and cries. When we would touch his hand with our fingers he would wrap his hand around us, now he pulls away. He is obviously feeling the gloves and has associated that with nurses and painful tests and procedures. I talked to the doctor this morning and expressed my concerns and unhappiness with the new rules, I don't want to spread anything, but at the same time WE HAVE TO TOUCH OUR BABY so that we can continue bonding - it is hard enough to bond with him in the hospital without adding this, too. He needs loving touch and not just clinical touch and I don't really understand if it isn't a bad enough bacteria to treat him for it why we can't just wash our hands often and before we leave his area to go home. So, we came to a compromise and we don't have to put on the gloves and gown when we are doing kangaroo care or if I am doing recreational breastfeeding. So we decided we will just do both those things often :)

Sorry about the rant - I think Jeremy and I have both come down with a severe case of hospital-itis or iwanttotakemybabyhomenow-itis. It's been 77 days of being there everyday and It's hard to see other babies that were born after Aiden get to go home. Especially now that all the other parents see Aiden's contamination signs and look at us like he has the ebola virus or something.

Anyway, other than that he is tolerating his feedings good enough and is now at 3 lbs. 15 oz. - almost to 4 lbs! The doctors have called the surgeon to get a date and time for his surgery, probably next week some time. They have also been able to reduce his oxygen flow this week from 4 liters to 3 liters per minute. They will try to reduce it again this week. After his surgery he will just need to work on bottlefeeding and steadily gaining weight so he can come home. Clearly, we can't wait for the day he leaves the hospital to come home with us!

The other thing is that we are not allowed to take our stuff into "the contamination zone" which means no camera, no pictures. I am going to try to sneak it in, but I might not be able to post new pictures on the blog regularly :(

Glow Worms

Remember those toys from the 80's - the glow worm? Last night Aiden was all bundled up in a green blanket and he looked just like a little glow worm...they are even the same size - ha ha!

The 80's version...

Our little glow worm!

Aiden has been pretty stable the last few days, not much new to report. He is still is having trouble gaining weight - he is not losing any, but has only gained an ounce in the last 3 days. The doctors would like to see about an ounce a day. I am so ready for him to get to 4 pounds so he can have his surgery, start bottle feeding and come home soon! The sooner he has the surgery, the sooner he can come home.

The physical therapist made some splints for his little feet this week and he has been wearing them for the past 2 days, 4 hours on and then 4 hours off. These splints help him to keep his feet straighter, but mostly are just getting him used to having something on this feet for when they put him into to hard casts. The therapist says that hard casting usually takes about 2-3 months to be effective, hopefully then his little club feet will be straight. I think his feet are cute the way they are, but they will be even cuter once they are straighten out :)

Jeremy looking kinda mad and Aiden in his new "shoes"

Jeremy held him for over 2 hours last night, I don't think he wanted to put him down. They look so cute when they are all cozied up together...