A busy week

Aiden and Daddy

Aiden had another big day on Monday. The orthopedist came to see him and his little feet got casted. His feet were placed closer to neutral alignment (where the foot is straight and in front of his shin) and casted in that position. In 2 weeks the casts will come off, his feet will be placed even closer to neutral alignment and re-casted. The process will happen every 1-2 weeks, depending on how fast Aiden is growing and will continue until his feet are where they totally in neutral alignment, usually about 8 weeks. His clubfeet were not something we had thought of that much, since so many other things going on with Aiden were life threatening. I finally did some internet research on the subject and found out that Aiden's are not that bad at all, his look pretty mild in comparison to others I saw, in fact the orthopedist said his left foot is not actually a clubfoot - just not positioned correctly (he called it a rocking foot), so his left foot will probably be corrected before his right foot.

Aiden and Momma

The orthopedist also found out that Aiden has a dislocated hip on his right side. Without any amniotic fluid for so long his right side was pretty squished in there and the ball of his femur did not grow correctly into the socket, no cartilage formed between them making it easy to slip the bone in and out of the socket. He is now wearing a special sling that keeps his hips in the correct position for the cartilage to grow and correct the problem. The orthopedist said that it usually takes about 3 months to correct, but it also depends on how fast Aiden grows.

Aiden in his casts and sling - momma is going to find a way to make it cuter :)

Aiden is back up to full feeds (50mls every 3 hours) and off the TPN and lipids - so no more IV...yay! He bottlefeeds for about 20 minutes and whatever is left over is fed to him through a little tube in his nose that goes down to his tummy - it's called gavage feeding. He usually takes 1 or 2 whole bottles a day and gets down about 20-25mls of the others and is gavage fed the remaining 20-25mls. His doctor says he is doing pretty good considering he has only been at it for a week :) He can go home on the gavage feedings, we just prefer that he doesn't, but feeding him might prove to be a challenge in the future. He weighed in last night at 5 lbs. 13 oz. although the casts are adding some extra weight!

Almost 4 months old!

His oxygen requirements have gone back up at Mercy. We are not quite sure why. When he left Sutter he was on 2 liters per minute at 22-23% oxygen, at Mercy he is on 2 liters 30-35% oxygen - sometimes even 40%. His doctor mentioned that he had not gotten his diuretic since he got back and he may have some extra fluid built up in his lungs, so he was started back on that. I was told we should be watching the liter flow rather than the O2 percentage, as he can come home on low flow oxygen, so the plan is to work on reducing his liter flow to 1/4 - 1/2 liters per minute and get him home!