Quck baby update

This is the email I sent to my manager this morning. I have been trying to figure out when I would have time to blog, but sleep and baby visits are taking precident over most other activities. While writing this email, though, I thought it would be a perfect little update to the folks that read my blog. So here goes (with a few additions and changes for the blogging community):

After trying to write a brief summary, I realized you might be too busy to read the whole thing. Brevity seems to be a thing I lack when writing about my baby boy, or when writing at 3:00 a.m. on very little sleep. In case you do want to read the whole thing, both the short version and long version of the last few days’ events are included.

The short version:

• Mom is good and recovering from c-section
• Baby is ok, in ICU, weaning off an IV and antibiotics before we can take him home
• He had a scary ambulance ride to a children’s hospital to take a dye test, which ruled out any bad problems (thank goodness!!)
• I’m quite tired, and not going to do much by way of work today or tomorrow

The long version:

Baby Michael is here, but there have been a few little scares. When he was first born, he went to the NICU because he had a little cough that indicated he was working harder than normal to get his lungs open. Almost as soon as they hooked up the monitors, he didn’t have the cough anymore, so only had to stay there about an hour. Later, however, he spit up some green, mucus-y stuff, which worried the doctors, and they wanted to do a dye test to check his GI track. The hospital we are at didn’t have anyone who could perform this test on him here (those that could had clocked out for the weekend), so he had to be transferred to Primary Children’s Hospital. I followed the ambulance there, and my poor wife stayed behind because she was still recovering from the C-section.

Luckily, the worst problems were ruled out (of course I can’t remember the names of anything… but it had to do with twisted intestines and so forth... started with a V... volvulous or something similar), and it looks like he has some reflux, and his stomach takes a long time to pass its contents on to the intestine. They transferred him back to our hospital and now have the little guy on an IV (which is now attached to a vein on his head—more scary looking than bad. The nurses were quick to tell us it was a normal place for an IV because babies tend to grab, wiggle, and pull out IVs in hands and legs), and we are trying to wean him off of it so his mom can just feed him. Also unfortunately, he is going to be on a series of antibiotics, so he’ll be here probably a day longer than mom. (UPDATE: The doc said this morning that because Hayley had a C section and the baby is in the ICU, there is no rush to get her out of here and will probably have her stay until Wednesday. We may get to take him home with us after all!)

So instead of having him come to the room every three hours to try to feed, we head down to the NICU, mom feeds him, he takes a little formula, and if he does a good job, they lower the IV dosage and we get closer to taking the little rascal home! Otherwise, his vitals are excellent and if the green puke never happened, he might still be upstairs with us rather than in the NICU, but we’re glad the reflux was caught and the larger intestinal problems were ruled out.

Just wanted to give you a heads up on things. I’m just getting back from his 2:00 a.m. feeding and thought I’d better drop a line. I’ll probably not do much work-related activity today. We’ll keep working on getting this kid off the IV and back upstairs in mom’s room.

Thanks for your understanding! And I’m sorry if this doesn’t make sense entirely… Those first few days only allowed for about 4 hours of total sleep…

And finally, while it is probably cheesy to send pictures of my baby to my manager, he’s so stinkin’ adorable it’s hard not to share at least the one where he’s sticking his tongue out! He’s about 30 minutes old in that picture. :)