Category: Preemies/NICU

So Fast . . .

Posted on by Becky

onmonitorOn Tuesday I got a call from Jefferson’s apnea people, saying that Monday’s download showed no true episodes and the doctor who reviews Micah’s downloads is recommending that he come off the monitor!

offmonitorI was so excited! Especially since Sean had said that some of the airlines don’t allow the baby to fly with a monitor. . . and we have tickets to visit my family in South Dakota in the middle of October! So I wasted no time calling the pediatrician and getting the final okay from him. Here are the pictures: what I carried around BEFORE and AFTER!! (“After” is so much simpler!!!!)

And Tuesday night, Micah went to bed for the first time in his life without any wires or tubes on or in his body! It was great to see the little guy lying there in his cradle, just like any other little baby! . . .firstnightwomonitorHe really is getting so big! His feet reach the end of the newborn-sized sleepers now. It won’t be much longer before I have to pack away his “newborn” clothes with the “preemie” ones. The past couple of weeks, he has started really smiling, and almost laughing. It is wonderful that he is a normal baby now. He’s also started enjoying the Baby Einstein activity mat, kicking his legs and waving his arms to activate the lights & start the music. Sometimes this summer it seemed like this stage would never come . . .

“It goes by so fast,” people keep telling me. So I want to write it down and remember it all.

2 Under 2 Visit the Pediatric Ophthamologist

Posted on by Becky

Yesterday Mara & Micah both had appointments with the pediatric ophthamologist. Overall the eye appts went fine. It was my 1st experience taking both children out for an appointment where we had to wait about an hour–of course, right at lunchtime.

Mara was okay at first, because I told her the dr was going to look at her eyes. She kept saying “Eye! Eye!” and pressing one eyelid shut . . . But when we got in there, and the dr was prying her eyelids open while she lay on my lap and putting 3 kinds of drops in them, she was screaming. It didn’t help that Micah was screaming from the stroller too. And when the dr turned off the lights and shone his headlamp into Micah‘s dilated eyes, Mara freaked and started yelling, “Light! Light! Light!” through her tears. The doctor said, “Say ‘bye-bye’! Say ‘bye-bye’!” which of course frustrated her, because that was exactly what she wanted.

I saw Breanna & her mom again (Breanna was Micah‘s little roommate in the NICU). Did I mention how I feel like God is allowing our paths to continue crossing for a reason?? . . . Anyway, Breanna has passed Micah in weight and length!! at 7 lbs 4 ozs and 20-1/4 inches! I was so happy!!! She has the chubbiest cheeks and she looks soooo healthy. She was 10 weeks premature, and struggled more than Micah to learn to eat, so this is encouraging. She is also not on a monitor and sleeping through most of the night! So she is doing fabulous! Connie said she lost my number, so I reached for one of the business cards on the counter to write my number down for her. . . I wasn’t prepared for the response of the receptionist, who snapped, “Did you just TAKE one of our business cards?!?!?!. . . Here! give that to me. I’ll give you a scrap piece of paper.” . . . wow. . .

I was like “I’m sorry.” Daniel said he would have laid a quarter on the desk and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you guys are so hard up for money. Here’s a quarter–it should buy you four more business cards!” :-)? . . . oh well. . .

Then there was Alex, the 2-year-old boy in the waiting room. He was climbing in Mara’s seat (in the double stroller) and standing on the chair next to me trying to pat Micah in his car seat. . . so I’m saying ‘please don’t touch the baby.’ Finally his dad/grandpa called him and he ran across the waiting room, got on a chair and started jumping. Mara (seeing this) began yelling, “Bad! Bad! Bad!” and “spanking” herself on her rear end w her hand (indicating what she thought should be happening to the errant child) . . . fortunately, her “bad” still sounds more like a bleating sheep at this point, so I’m sitting there saying enthusiastically, “Hey! Mara! Let’s read a book!” 🙂

On the bright side, Micah‘s eyes continue to develop as a normal (full-term) baby’s eyes would, and he just has one more appt in 3 weeks. The dr believes that Mara’s “strabismus” has cleared up!! which is good–basically meaning her eyes are tracking together now, no need for a patch or surgery. 🙂 However, he said that she will be near-sighted as she grows up (like me–not Daniel’s perfect vision). So he wants to see her again when she turns 3. . . . she will be my little red-headed, freckled girl with glasses. . . oh my. . .

Micah’s Due Date

Posted on by Becky

Well, finally Micah’s due date has arrived. According to the doctors, he was due Thursday, July 24, and he had an appointment with the pediatrician, Dr. Kantor, that day. In addition to giving his 2nd hepatitis B shot, Dr. Kantor weighed and measured him. He is now a whopping 7 lbs., 2 ozs.! I think he has been eating very well! I was hoping he would weigh about 6-1/2 lbs., so I was very excited. He is also 19-1/2 inches long, 2-1/4 inches longer than he was at birth! What a growing boy!! Maybe that growth in length explains why he still doesn’t have much fat on his little bones. 🙂

The best news of the day is that Dr. Kantor thought it would be fine to take him out of the house at this point! So we went shopping. Micah’s first shopping trip with Mommy! We went to Franklin Mills, and he was a trooper! We found deals on kids’ clothes at Childrens’ Place and Carter’s, and then I got Daniel new jeans and khakis at Levi’s Strauss and Marshalls. Since I hadn’t eaten anything all day (except the coffee Daniel french-pressed for me in the morning), I stopped at Arby’s for dinner. They gave me the wrong sandwich, so once they corrected my order, I ended up getting the other sandwich (a market fresh ham n swiss) for free–Daniel’s lunch for tomorrow!! 🙂

Mara spent the day at the Jersey shore with Darla & Diane . . . and Jessica, Noel, Amanda, and another friend, plus Daniel’s Aunt Lorraine, Uncle Phil, and their five kids. So I guess she got a lot of attention. They said she didn’t really like the feeling of the sand between her toes, and they took her out to the waves, which she wasn’t terribly excited about. And once a cold wave hit her, that was all she wanted to see of the ocean. . . Maybe next time, we can build sandcastles together or something. . .

She was wiped out by 10:30 p.m. when they brought her home. She lay on the changing table, eyes drifting shut, calling out weakly, “Dadda? . . . Dadda? . . .”

Micah Is Home!

Posted on by Becky

After 23 days in the NICU, our little Micah Kenyon came home late Friday night, June 27. Micah’s name means “Who is like Jehovah?” or “Who is like our God?” Over the past two months, dealing with pre-term labor, bedrest, an emergency C-section and a preemie in the NICU, I have been continually amazed seeing God’s hand in our lives and in Micah’s life. As we give a brief update on all that God has done, we also want to say thank you to so many of you, who have faithfully prayed for us. We have felt your prayers and known God’s grace in a deep way during the past few weeks.
Last month at this time, I had no idea what the month of June would hold—I was psyching myself up for bedrest until June 26! But God knew.
Psalm 139 says, “. . . in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” This passage has filled me with an overwhelming awe of God, and at the same time, it has been an incredible comfort! Micah was not seven weeks “early” in God’s book. God knew that Micah would be born at 32 weeks and 6 days. God knew he would spend three weeks in the NICU and come home a healthy 5 lb. 6 oz. baby boy! Who is like our God?
Initially the neonatologist told us that getting off tube feedings and learning to bottle-feed while holding (and gaining) weight would be the last “hurdle” before Micah’s discharge. In the end, his continued heart rate drifts and breathing irregularities were what kept him there the last week. The neonatologist has prescribed daily doses of caffeine citrate for his heart rate drifts, and he will be on an cardiorespiratory monitor for the next few months. At this point, it seems to be an issue of immaturity, which he hopefully will outgrow before he comes off the monitor. He has had only two apnea/brady episodes since coming home, neither of which required intervention.
Again Psalm 139 has been a comfort. God knew, before Micah was born, that his lungs would be strong enough he would not need to be on oxygen. God also knew that his apnea/bradycardia episodes would continue, requiring the caffeine and the monitor. None of this is a surprise to God!
As I hold Micah, I reflect:
“God, you formed Micah’s lungs. His heart. His “inward parts,” the psalmist says.
“You ‘knitted’ Micah together in my womb.
“Nothing about Micah was hidden from You, when he was ‘being made in secret, intricately woven.’
“He is wonderfully made. . .
“Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well!”
And in awe, I say, “Who is like our God?!”

Micah Update: Friday morning, June 20

Posted on by Becky

Here’s today’s update from Dr. Schrager, the neonatologist:

Micah is doing much the same as yesterday. His weight remained roughly the same (maybe a very slight drop of 0.3 oz): 4 lbs 15.5 ozs.

He has been doing well with his bottle feedings. Last feeding (at 9:30 a.m.) he took 60 CCs.

His apnea/brady episodes are improving in the sense that they did not require intervention over the past 24 hours. However, Dr. Schrager is “concerned about his heart rate drifts” and is ordering a pneumogram for either today/tomorrow. Even though Micah’s current episodes didn’t require intervention, the combination of his smaller episodes and the few times over the past week (where he has changed color to a “dusty” or “blue” and the nurses had to stimulate him) is cause for concern. Dr. Schrager will read the results on Sunday since he will be on call that day. The heart rate drifts, he said, “may be reflux-related, and it certainly looks that way on the monitor, but not when you look at the baby.” (We aren’t seeing a lot of spit-up either through his nose or mouth. But he said you aren’t always able to see it.) The pneumogram will record breathing effort, heart rate, oxygen level, and air flow to the lungs during sleep. Micah will also have a pH recording to measure how often stomach acid comes up into the esophagus. This is done through a tube in his nose, down the esophagus.

Micah is mostly ready to come home (as far as taking the bottle, holding his temp, etc.) But the results of the pneumogram will help them decide if he should be coming home on the apnea/bradycardia monitor. Friends (who had preemies on the AB monitor) tell me that those monitors can make your life very miserable with all the false alarms, but I would much rather have the monitor, than not know if Micah was in trouble. So I’m praying that God will make it really clear whether or not he should be on a monitor!

Dr. Schrager said that with these tests, Micah definitely won’t come home before Monday. . . The heart rate drifts are the dr’s main concern, and he wants to be sure Micah is really ready to come home. (It was reassuring to hear the doctor say that!!)

I told Dr. Schrager that Mara has been congested, coughing, and running a fever around 101 yesterday and today. So I asked him whether I should hold off on visiting Micah today. He said as long as I don’t have any symptoms, it should be okay, if I wash my hands well before seeing him . . . So please pray that Micah will stay healthy!!