Moving Forward

There have been some very exciting things going on with our little man. He now weighs 1550 grams/ 3 lbs 6.6 ounces, he has officially made the 1500 gram requirement for his surgery. He is scheduled for his bowel repair on Monday at 01:00 pm. We are preparing for it by having  an emergency baptism. We are able to have his godparents, grandparents, and us there to witness this event. His Godparents are Sarah Reynolds, she is his Tia, his Godfather is Ray Villarreal, our nephew. We are so excited that he is gonna be baptized.


Last weekend we started bottle feeding and breastfeeding. He did really great taking the bottle, but we are focusing on the breastfeeding. He will have no option but breastfeeding when he comes home, so that is the most important thing to work on. It has been a lot of work trying to keep up with pumping, and now both breast feeding and pumping, I feel so exhausted. He is starting to hit some milestones, but he will be taking a few steps back when he has his surgery. He will have to be vented (put back on the machine that breathes for him), when he gets off of that he will be on the cpap
machine, and then back to the cannula. This is what we need to do to get closer to coming home.

Gabriel's Tia Sarah finished his room for him, she hung up all his decorations and fixed my work. She and Grandma "Buela", Marissa's mom, Sebastian and Noah came into town for a visit. Buela cooked food for us, it is nice to eat something other than cereal and sandwiches, Sarah painted the guest bedroom and started our room. Sebastian and Noah brought the love and entertainment. We are so lucky to have such great family.

Well, we were so excited when Gabriel hit 3 lbs  two nights ago, but he has since dropped to 2 lbs 15 oz.  He has also developed VRE, Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus, which is something that developed from receiving to much of the antibiotic Vancomycin. He has since been moved into an isolation room with the other baby that tested positive. It is a tight fit, but we are all making it work. I am just happy that the other family is very nice.

Gabriel has started sleeping more and we are hoping that he is just taking the time to grow a little. He has been smiling and what looks like laughing a lot more lately, he is just the cutest baby I have ever seen. Manuel and I could not be happier. We cannot wait until he comes home. We are always fighting over who gets to change his diaper and who gets to hold him, when he comes home we will fight over who has to do it.

We have met the greatest couple who have twins in the NICU as well, and it has been so therapeutic to have someone to talk to that understands what we are going through. I have so much fun with them and laugh a lot. They have been a God send.

I am also so very grateful for my family who came into town to help with stuff around the house so we didn't have to stress over slpitting our time between the hospital and the house. My sister who gives Bob Vila a run for his money, installed Gabriel's new ceiling fan and finished decorating his room. She also got our guest bedroom painted and started the painting in our bedroom. My mother also cooked us several meals to make sure we had good food  to eat instead of cereal and sandwiches. I had such a great time visiting with my nephews Noah and Sebastian, they always make my heart smile.

I have been blessed with great family and friends. We have been given so many things for Gabriel, and I will have the thank you cards done before his first birthday I swear, and I know he will be so happy to know how many people care about him.

Thank you everyone!

Update

Well I am going to choose to start off with the most amazing thing. My little man finally got to wear his first piece of clothing. There is this organization called Threads of Love and they make crochet/knit blankets, vest (these are special because they have velcro straps that make it easy to get off), booties, caps, quilts to cover up the incubators, lovies (these a little snowman looking people made out of socks that carry the scent of whoever wears it), and bena bags (these are used to lay up against the babies to simulate the pressure of someone holding them). This group of people are the most amazing people, they take time from their own day to make these items for the children in the NICU all over San Antonio.

Gabriel's nurse tonight Amy went and got him a couple of vest that had been made with a boy in mind (instead of the floral one's he already had) so that he could have something to wear. Yes I know this was more for me than it was for him, because he has no idea what clothes are. It did make me happy to see my little boy get to experience what the full term babies do.

Well Gabriel is finally starting to get back to where he was post surgery. He was on the vent for two days, then on the Cpap mask to help him breathe for two days also, and now he has the regular cannula (this is tube that gives him his oxygen through the prongs in his nostrils). He was pretty sedated for two days from the anesthesia from the surgery and started to stir on Wednesday but was not happy about the mask.

Yesterday he was very upset and we could not get him to cal down. He definitely knows what he likes and he doesn't. He cried and cried during the day shift and I was able to settle him for a while when I held him. He unfortunately started to get really fussy and upset as the night progressed, we knew that something was wrong. As we started his bath we noticed that the Cpap mask he had on started to leak fluid into his eye causing it to swell and the RT fixed it, but that was a temporary fix. He kept fussing, and would only calm down to rest a regain the energy needed to fuss again. It was a rough night for him, poor guy.

I received a call in the morning from his nurse letting us know that he had pushed out his intestines and the surgeon would have to come in to get it back in, which was done in a matter of hours. Gabriel didn't complained until it was over and he was being cleaned up. He was given some meds that let him rest the rest of the day. He started opening his eyes and waking up when we left around midnight. The good new is that the surgeon said he would do the surgery to repair his bowl when he is at 1500 grams instead of 1800 grams. He is having a hard time getting the proper nutrition since he is only using a very small portion of his intestine. I cannot wait until then. Hopefully this will be the last procedure he will have to endure. I am happy to see him smile again...

Surgery Today

Well today was a long day. My little man had surgery this morning to insert a central line in his artery (this is just a different type of IV line). The surgery took a little over two hours, but he did really good and didn't even need a transfusion. He was still feeling the effects of the anesthesia when we left at midnight, but had started to try to wake up. He was opening his eyes and moving his arms and legs. He will still be on the vent (the machine that breathes for him) until tomorrow morning so he can rest and recover from the surgery. This procedure took a lot out of him, but hopefully he will be able to get the fluids and extra nutrition to help him gain weight. He needs to be 1800 grams before the surgeon will do his bowl repair and right now he is 1100 gram. So we will let you know how he is doing tomorrow and has had time to get over the effects of the surgery.

Today is a good day

Well today was a good day because my little man got all of his IV lines taken out. All he has left on him is his feeding tube and the stuff that monitors his heart and breathing. He did so good on his breathing, but he is starting to like his pacifier a little too much. He likes us to stand next to him and hold it in his mouth, every once in a while he will hold it himself. He is already training mommy to give him what he wants when he gets upset and Manuel teases me about it.

I was able to hold him today and he was stable the whole time. He is getting so big, but he did loose some weight. He weighs 2lbs and 8 ounces today. He has lost a lot of the fluid he had been retaining and he is not wearing the cpap mask anymore. He needs to gain just over a pound so that he can have the surgery to repair his bowels. We are very happy for his progress and cannot wait until we bring him home. This week he is thirty two weeks today, eight more weeks to go...Yeah!

Update

Well Gabriel has been doing good. He is back on the CPAP and he does not like it, he is always pulling at it. He actually got the strap loose the other day. I think what bothers him the most is that he cannot put his hands over his face when he sleeps.

He had his first eye exam today and he has stage 1 ROP. This is an eye disease of premature babies, in which new, abnormal blood vessels grow near the retina, and temporarily or permanently damage it. Stage 1 is when the eye doctor sees a white demarcation line separating the normally developed retina near the back of the eye from the undeveloped retina in front. The doctor says this is common in preemies and it should correct itself on its own so we are going o wait and see. We all know that he will have to wear glasses at some point because everyone in my family wears them.

The funny thing is when the nurse went to go dilate his eyes he would scrunch them up and when she walked away he wold open them. I was told he did this a couple of times and then when the nurse went to do it again he had covered up his eyes. My little baby is funny and already has such a personality. We are really in for it because he is already acting like his mommy. They do say that your children are three times worse than you were, so Mom here is your payback.