30 weeks gestation

Wow! It's hard to believe it's almost been 5 weeks since I gave birth to Lochlan. Today marks his 30 week gestation. He would have been born in 10 more weeks or so and my belly would have been getting nice and big and well rounded! Oh well. For whatever reason, Lochlan was meant to come into this world a fighting.

Before having Abby, the pregnancy prior I miscarried shortly after I found out that I was pregnant. I was thinking about that today and realized that that baby's due date would have been May 5th. I was trying to remember if it was May 5th or the 3rd but I'm pretty convinced it was the 5th. Either way, it's slightly weird that Lochlan was born on the same day as that baby would have been due or around that time anyway.

Today as I entered the NICU, I donned my lovely hospital gown and gloves and went into his private room. (the infectious disease specialist wanted him moved to a room on his own) It was strange being in a room all by ourselves. To be honest it was a bit of a pain in the butt. Mind you, I like the privacy, just not the reason he's there and those gloves are hot and sticky! And I still don't get why after 5 days since it started they decided to put him in a room of his own. Why now? Yesterday we had a snuggle with skin to skin contact, and today I'm wearing gloves to touch him and having to pump in his room rather than go to the special pumping room and having to place the bottles in a bag and having to bag my book that I brought with me just to leave the NICU. Odd.

Other than those precautions, Loch is doing well in my opinion. His O2 requirements were sitting around 42% when I was there and he looked well. His picc line was removed this morning. It started leaking and so they had to take it out. He now has an IV in his foot. Poor lil monkey. But at least his arm is free now even though the skin is very dry. I wish they could put some cream on it or something.

He had an abdominal ultrasound done today to check out his kidneys. Haven't heard the results yet. And he also had his blood culture taken - they had to shave a bit of his hair since they took it from his head. He will have a head scan tomorrow to check on his bleeding (even though it was supposed to not be until next week) but because of the infection they want to check out everything as an extra precaution. Please God, let everything be normal. No more bleeding on his brain.

His feeds were resumed today as well. There were two more bottles of collostrum that were found in the freezer so he got some of that. Well, 1 ml! But it's a start. He'll get 1ml every 6 hours and then gradually increase if he tolerates it well.

So that's where things are at right now. I'll call in a little bit to check his weight and to get an overall update on how he's doing. Oh, I forgot to mention that the RT (respiratory therapist) said that his lungs sounded much better today! : )

Til tomorrow,
Jenn

*UPDATE* 11pm
His weight increased by 200 grams! Crazy! His nurse, Sandy said she was going to weigh him again since that really is a lot to increase by and he'd had a big pee. (or void as they call it!) So until she weighs him again, he is 1240 grams. (2.73 pounds or 2 lbs 11 oz) She also said that his O2 has been 24-25%!!!! That's awesome!!! It hasn't been that low in a long time! Keep it up my lil miracle!