NICU update

I am sitting here staring at one of the most beautiful babies I have ever seen! 

He is so perfect. Perfect nose, kissable lips, his Mama's ears, blonde hair, and huge hands.

I am so in love with this amazing little miracle.

He is healing, and I am healing. Together we are going to make it through all of this.

Yesterday was hard. I am going to do my best to try to write it all out as best I can.

Grayson is a full term healthy baby. He is one of the rare babies that is born full term, but his lungs have a few issues. The doctors said they see this about twice a year. So we are in the rarity here. Right after he was born his breathing was great, except for some growling. We have learned that he possibly had a lack of surfactant which means his lungs may have not been as mature as they should have. This also caused the fluid that was on his lungs at birth to still be in there. This is eventually supposed to reabsorb into his body and eventually just get peed out. The first day they let him work at fixing his breathing on his own as long as they could. He didn't get better so they put him on a CPAP machine to help him with his breathing. This was the least invasive option to help him at that point. The CPAP would push air into his lungs to assist him at breathing. After he was still continuing to struggle with the CPAP, they opted to intubate him and give him a dose of surfactant to give his lungs another chance to mature. This helped him to improve, but not drastically. 

SIDE NOTE:: The field of medicine is very tricky. There are procedures that are done to help one problem, but in doing so, this procedure can possibly pose another risk. 

After being on the CPAP for so long, Grayson's lungs responded well, but some of the little alveoli (small balloons in his lungs) basically popped. This made air escape into his chest, making him more uncomfortable and causing him to work harder at trying to heal. At this point they had to make a new game plan at how to help him heal and rest so each little thing could work its way out. They took him off the CPAP and put him on a ventilator. The sound of putting my baby on a ventilator scared me REALLY bad! However, after seeing him on it, he is much more comfortable, he can rest better, and I can now see his face because it doesn't cover him up like the CPAP did. The ventilator is a tube that goes down his throat straight into his windpipe(trachea) to help him breathe without stress. He is still breathing on his own, the ventilator just does about half of the breath's for him. They also decided that because of the air in his chest they would need to put in a chest tube to drain out the air. Again, this procedure sounded HORRIBLE to me. {Thank goodness for my husband and the calm nurses and doctors who are here to reassure me that each thing we do is safe and benefitting him, not hurting him more.} He took it all like a champ!! {With some pain med assistance to make him comfortable}

This all took place yesterday afternoon. When they first put on the ventilator they had it pumping in 100% Oxygen to get him stable. Once he stabilized they began to slowly wean him down. Well through the night he weaned down to 50%!! CHAMP!! The goal is to get him to 21% which is room air, which means the vent can come off! He has about 29% more to drop and at that point he will be breathing totally on his own. 

Everything that is going on has been very traumatic for me. I have never cried or been so scared in my entire life. Thankfully I have been reassured over and over again that although everything sounds and looks scary, it is really not a big deal in the scheme of babies in the NICU. Our doctor told us that on a scale of 1-10 for the babies here, Grayson is only a 1/2. So they are constantly reassuring me that the only thing that is making this hard is the time. There is no fix all, only time will heal and we are just waiting on his little body to kick into gear.

He is 3.5 days old today, and this is about the point where babies who are sick begin to make a turn around. He is peeing A LOT which means his body is beginning to absorb the fluid that was on his lungs, which will make his body heal quicker. They love to see that! The air that was in his chest has pretty much all escaped out thanks to the chest tube. His lungs are healing, he is breathing well with the assistance of the vent, and they are now feeding him my milk again {after taking a night off of feeds because of his body needing rest}. 

Having him in the NICU has been scary. We are feeling challenged emotionally and physically with each new day. We are learning patience more than anything right now. Waiting on healing is not easy. We want to fix him and bring him home, but we can't. We can only sit by him and watch his little body fight this fight. He is the most precious thing and we love him more than we can even express to him right now.

Although we can not hold him, we can sit with him as much as we want, they let us change his diapers and take his temperatures, I can hold his hand and speak softly to him, and we can just be still and sit in prayer. 

We are hoping in a few days he will turn the corner and start to make drastic improvements. Once he heals, we have been reassured that he should have no lasting problems because of this. He will be a healthy, big boy, should have no problems nursing, and will one day beat up on big brother Camden. 

We so appreciate all the prayers and support. I could not handle any of this without the love and support of my husband. Wesley has been my strength when I feel like I can't make it another minute because my heart is aching so bad. We are anxiously waiting for the day we can bring him home and begin our life with him near us all day, every day.