39 weeks along, 14 weeks old Friday

Today marks the day that Lucas is 39 weeks old gestationally. As of today he'd be considered full term and I'd be expecting to be having a baby any day under normal circumstances. But instead, Lucas graced us with his presence 14 weeks ago Friday. Since then he has come a long way. He continues to work on eating and his blood pressure is pretty high. He may have to go on blood pressure medication, but a scan of his kidneys looked good. His next eye exam is Monday so we're hopeful for good results.

Length: 16.5 inches
Head Circumference: 13 inches
Weight: 5 lbs 7.8 oz

I made it to 5lbs!

Lucas is 5lbs 1.6 ounces as of last night! Yay! Glad we waited to buy that car seat. He is still a ways away from coming home. We're making little progress on eating from the bottle but great progress on growing. He's up to 43 ml every 3 hours, but they've got him back on oxygen during his feedings because his oxygen saturations drop while he's eating a lot. He scratched his face for the first time and his little fingernails are getting long. Mommy was excited to sleep in a little today and get a shower. Daddy got baby to eat for him last night. Baby thanks everyone for all the gifts and continuing prayers as he gets bigger and stronger every day. Lucas welcomes baby B to the world today. Congratulations to Tracy on her beautiful baby girl!

Hia

Length: 16.15 inches

Head circumference: 12.5 inches

Weight: 4 lbs 12.5 oz

Pouty pout pout

SMILE


aww sleepy time

Baby's first booties

Babys first St Pattys Day, early before he doesnt fit anymore!

Lucas is doing very well. He's seemed very tired the last few days, probably for several reasons. Eating, regulating body temperature and healing takes a lot of energy. He was also taken off caffeine Wednesday. His eye exam yesterday was good- healing well and his next exam will be in two weeks to make sure his eyes aren't growing abnormally again. We're still working on feeding from a bottle, but Lucas is growing well and has already outgrown 1 outfit! We're not sure when he'll be able to come home yet and miss him all the time!

12 weeks old!

Listening to Music

Thanks for the blankie Cora!

oooo soft blanky

In my big boy crib

Thanks Cousin Evan for my dinosaur outfit

Getting mommy time before operation

Thanks Donna for my First Valentines Day Card! Love You too!

Cuddle Time with Grandpa

Lucas's operation appears to have gone well and he is healing well too. His little eyes are still red, but he's opening them a lot more as of yesterday. He came off the ventilator @ ~ 11:30 AM on Tuesday and came off all oxygen support Wednesday morning. He's back to breathing on his own and is now in his big boy crib! We get comments from the nursing staff often saying how big he is and how cute he is. They've all watched him grow too but because of their rounds, some of them havent seen him in weeks so they can really see the difference. We're still working on his feedings, getting used to bottle feeding. He has a new bottle that you can control & gradually increase the flow of milk- its pretty awesome. Our next hurdles are getting through the feeding pathway and hopefully getting through all his eye exams with two thumbs up. He'll get eye exams every week. We'll have a better idea whether the surgery worked in a few weeks.

Surgery today

I received a call today around 1:30 pm surprisingly since I had already received the morning update telling us Lucas was doing so well that they thought they'd be moving him to the crib today. They told us he'd be getting his eye exam too. Well, the call at 1:30 was to ask for consent to do immediate laser eye surgery. The eye doctor found that the blood vessels in both of Lucas's eyes were growing abnormally, putting his eyes at risk for retinal detachment & subsequent blindness. He went into surgery around 5:30 pm and came out at about 7:30 pm. He had been placed under general anesthesia and was put back on the ventilator. The plan now is for them to ween him off the ventilator tonight and hopefully have him off tomorrow. They won't know if the surgery was successful for another 2-3 weeks. If the blood vessels continue growing, they will cause more problems. Lucas will most likely have problems with his peripheral vision because his blood vessels had not finished growing to those parts of the eyes. There is a 75% chance that the surgery was successful at stopping the blood vessels and preventing blindness, but he will need frequent eye exams for a while. Baby boy might be needing glasses sooner than he normally would have, but both mommy and daddy have bad vision, so it was a given.

Now we're hoping for a quick recovery with no infection and that he's among the 75% that don't need any more surgery. If he's in the 25% he'll be needing more invasive surgery that goes beyond laser surgery,

On a positive note: Lucas was 16.15 inches long and his head circumference was 12.35 inches yesterday. He's not gaining much weight as he used to in a given day but he broke 2000 grams and weighed 2003, or 4 lbs 7 oz yesterday. He likely lost some weight today because of the surgery. I will keep everyone posted.

11 weeks old

Lucas has been on room air --no oxygen support-- since 10 PM last night. YAY! This is super exciting for me. He took a full 16 minute breast feeding at 9:30 this morning and seemed particularly hungry without having any episodes whatsoever. He did have some trouble with his oxygen saturations and got the hiccups so I put him back and am taking the opportunity to update the blog. He's doing very well. His last eye exam showed that his eyes look better (no worse) and he had an echo of his heart which showed that the PDA is small rather than moderate-- also good. Baby roo is growing like a week at 4 lbs 4 oz. He seems pretty happy this morning. Its been hard balancing time with him and work. I'm here all morning and then straight to work Tuesday-Saturday, but I did take this Saturday off for a friends baby shower and to get some chores done. If anyone plans on stopping by the hospital or the house, please call first as I'm unpredictable as to where I'll be Saturday and Sunday outside baby shower times. Thank you family, friends and strangers for keeping us in your thoughts, Thank-you God for our many blessings!

see how big my preemie outfit is?

I'm in my big boy bed

Hanging out with momma

Grrr.... my hat is too tight!

Lucas is still working on his feeding. He has a lot of trouble with sucking, swallowing and breathing. If you've ever seen a baby turn blue/grey then you know how scary it is. I had another one of those moments this morning. I wish I could make it easier on him, but I know we just have to wait for him to mature and heal enough to do ok. I asked the doctor about the red mark above his left eye today that appeared shortly after his first eye exam. The doctor said that he thinks its a Hemangioma. This has me a little concerned because its on his eye lid. If its just a red patch of skin I can live with it, but the doc said it could grow and potential interupt his sight, but that there are treatments for it so I shouldn't worry. Of Course I worry anyway... It seems that we get past one thing and find that there are more hurdles behind it. I know he's doing excellent though and we're proud of our son's progress so far. He has been expressing himself and his annoyance at being moved from one position to another through little grunts. Its very cute.