Three Weeks Old

Today at 4:59 P.M. Cael will be three weeks old. It is unbelievable how quick these past three weeks have passed by! We are grateful for every minute we get to spend with him and hope that time starts to slow down because at this rate everything will pass by too fast!

Cael had an excellent night last night! He only woke up twice from 10:15 P.M. until 8:30 A.M.! The first time he was awake for 45 minutes and the second for about 70 minutes. This was remarkable because he ended up sleeping for most of the day on Wednesday- his body must have really needed some good rest! Since Caelin slept well, that means Mommy got to sleep well, too!

This morning during rounds the doctors decided to continue weaning the Fentanyl and put it down from 2 to 1.5. The flow on his nasal cannula is down to 1 which is the lowest they plan to go before taking him off. They did put it on 1.5 but since the cannula is humidified, the flow being down so low made the machine constantly beep that the temperature was too high. His oxygen is still on 25%, but the lowest setting is 21% so hopefully they will attempt to remove the cannula tomorrow.

His feeds are being boosted from 2 mL/hr to 4 mL/hr and a speech therapist came in to help him try oral feeding. But of course when she arrived Cael was sleeping. He refused to wake up! She even tried holding him up and putting the binky in his mouth but he was out and didn't even budge. This disappointed Mommy because she was looking forward to him starting to breast feed today and shock all the doctors with how well he does. The therapist asked if Caelin had a time when he is typically awake but Cael has not yet established a schedule because of all the procedures and transitions he has had to make.

The one concerning thing of today is Caelin is beginning to exhibit some signs of apnea. About 6 times today, his heart rate randomly dropped below 100. Every time but one happened while he was sleeping. Initially this morning the doctor said it was nothing to be concerned with because it had only happened twice that we noticed. She said that it is typical healthy baby respiration but healthy babies don't get monitored so parents don't often realize. Although she did not seem suspicious of anything, it still worries Mommy very much. The nurses and doctors said they will continue to monitor his respiratory and heart rates by checking the chest X-ray, doing their daily assessment of Cael, and tracking his daily recorded heart rate and respiratory patterns. Hopefully it is nothing to be concerned with like they said this morning and that it will go away as he gets older and his body matures.