The end of another week!

We all piled in the car and headed to the hospital today. Trevor had an appointment with the cardiologist today for an echocardiogram. They were checking to see if his ductus arteriosus had closed. This is a blood vessel that connects the pulmonary artery to the aorta to allow blood flow to bypass the lungs while the baby is in the womb and it should naturally close after birth. In preemies, it can be slow to close but Trevor is looking good.

Brendan had an echo today too, but in his case, they were looking for any signs of fluid build up around the heart and they were looking at his pulmonary banding. The tech couldn’t tell me much, we have to wait for the doctor to read it, but I believe everything looked really good there.

In rounds today, the doctors all seemed to think that Brendan was making good progress. He is in auto mode on the ventilator with only a small amount of pressure support which they are weaning throughout the day. This pretty much means he is breathing all on his own, the ventilator is just pushing each breath a little fuller on each inhale, and is just there as backup if he would stop breathing. We are eager to get to the hospital in the morning to see if they are going to make an attempt to extubate tomorrow.

Brendan gets his echocardiogram:

There is not much room on his chest to use the ultrasound probe, and now he is all covered in gel.

Trevor is not allowed to visit his brother in his room right now. So he is hanging out in the family lounge with Bill while Brendan’s echo is finished.

At home tonight – our new kitchen sink has the “baby bathtub” feature. The small side sink is the perfect size for Trevor to float in and he seems to really like it!

I am happy to say that there is not that much to report today. Brendan’s respiratory therapist is happy with his progress on weaning from the ventilator. They are taking it really slow, but his blood gas tests are looking good.
He has been moved up to 4cc of breast milk via his feeding tube every 3hrs and he is tolerating it well. (4cc is a little less than a teaspoon!)

He is swaddled up tight and lying on his side.

Trevor is going to have a really busy day tomorrow, so for tonight he is just lounging.

This baby is always hungry. He currently gets about 26 times more milk per feeding than his brother. Brendan has some catching up to do!

I didn’t even realize it was a weekend until I tried to run in to Walmart. So busy!! The days melt in to each other and are flying by. Being in the hospital is like some kind of time warp. You walk in and next thing you know, 4 hrs have gone by. So much is happening and my brain struggles to absorb it all.

Brendan is still doing better. A perfect example of how it is impossible to keep track of what is going on – yesterday the doctor told me that they were going to wait 10 days post-op before they would begin feeding again (yesterday would be day 3). Today when I walked in, the nurse was pulling out his NG tube for his stomach drainage and she was replacing it was a new NG tube for feeding! This morning someone changed their minds again about his plan.
So the good news is, he has milk in his belly again. They are giving him 2cc every 3 hours to start and will be increasing it steadily as he tolerates it.
He still has quite a bit of fluid built up, but he is peeing really full diapers and that is just a matter of time before he can get rid of that.
They are continuing to decrease the Fentanyl and they have weaned back significantly on the ventilator. The most important part of it all is that he is taking steps in the right direction.

The old IV pumps are back. The new bank of pumps was a trial for equipment that the hospital is considering to purchase. The good news is that he is down to 7 pumps and only 5 different things being administered.

Brendan had lots of handling today and was pretty tired. The yellowish tube going in to his nose is his feeding line. He really, really did not enjoy them putting that in.

Trevor has a full belly and some clothes that actually fit, so he is looking cute as can be. Carters brand clothing shrinks significantly when washed. (Like 20% or more loss in size) That means that I can wash the newborn sized things down to a good fit.

All in all, a good day.