I have to say breast feeding (pumping) is exhausting! Of course I’ve also had to have my blood pressure and temp taken every 3 hours during the night. I feel like I’m running on fumes right now. We’ll see how tonight goes; I’m not on an IV so I should be more on my own. Anyway, I’m feeling pretty good considering what my gut went through Saturday morning! I am taking pain medicine, although not as much as they are offering. I’m pretty proud of that one! When they took out the epidural that was feeding me my pain meds I was prepared to feel awful...so far it’s tolerable. My legs have swollen up like crazy though because I’m always up and I’ve been told to slow down. SOOOOO I’m going to take a nap before my hubby gets here. I just wanted to post a few pictures of our little John Doe and let you know how he’s doing. Yes we’re trying to agree on a name. We’re both stubborn though and neither of us wants the other to be unhappy! O-well we have to figure it out before Wednesday!
He’s doing ok today. His breathing is a little fast which means he’s working hard to get the air he needs. Because he’s a preemie his lungs aren’t fully developed. They don’t expand and contract like ours do. Meaning his lungs are kind of stiff and that’s why he’s working harder. He’s getting enough oxygen, he just has to take shorter breaths to get it. If this continues they will have to put him back in the ventilator. They’re trying something else before going that route though. The machine they’re using adds extra pressure to his existing oxygen (the mask thingy is his regular oxyger), you can’t see any difference but, it’s there. What it does is add a constant pressure to help ‘stretch’ his lungs and also another, higher pressure when he inhales. Hopefully this will make his lungs more flexible and therefore less work on him to fill.
The black mask is to protect his eyes from the light therapy he receiving due to jaundice. It’s very common in preemies apparently. They light breaks down the bilirubines (a component of red blood cells that’s also present in brusis) and helps it safely pass through the liver. Weird huh
The little orange tube on his right is his feeding tube. It runs into his nose and down to his stomach. He’s much to young to suck, swallow and breathe at the same time! Plus his digestive system isn’t fully prepared for it yet. What they do is put some breast milk into the tube every 3 hours. What’s strange is that before they do that they pull back on the syringe to see if he’s digesting it. Whatever is still in there gets tosses and replaced with fresh. So far he’s been ‘processing’ the milk well!
Well it’s nap time!!!
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