Nate comes home finally!

Nate has been home twenty-four hours. He has been feeding every four hours. Everything is going well. The Apnea/Heart monitor is a pain in the tookas. It never goes off unless there is a "loose connection." It goes off frequently and loudly. Nate has had several field trips including CVS, Sweetbay, Largo Medical Center, The Thirsty Marlin, Kmart and my parent's house. Look for him at a location near you soon. We would like to thank all the people who have supported us through his stay at All Children's especially Lynn, Donna, Katie, Mary, Carmen, Haydee and many others. We would also like to thank all the people who had Nate in their prayers. Here are some picture from his exodus from the hospital.

Remember to click the pics to enlarge them!

Patrick

As you can see in the sixth picture, Nate had some eye drainage- the eye was cultured, came back with no growth on the culture and resolved on its own in less than 48 hrs.

Don't forget to click the pic to enlarge.

And back to our regularly scheduled programming....

Hello- well, it has been a frustrating week. I have been pretty discouraged with not being able to bring Nate home. He has continued to have regular episodes of bradycardia (dropping his heart rate). Starting today they are doing more tests to see if it is the reflux that is solely responsible for this or if there may be another underlying issue. I feel better that there is some investigation going on instead of just waiting to see if he will grow out of it. We have been expecting to be discharged on 5 different days in the past 2 weeks, only to be told that day he was not going home. The frustration did get the better of me this last week. Sorry for the lack of posts.

On the positive side, Nate is eating pretty well and tonight weighed in at 6 pounds 11 ounces!! Some of his preemie clothes are actually starting to fit/get snug. He is such a good baby and rarely fusses. He makes some of the funniest faces-- I have some good pictures of a couple of them, but I wish I could have captured some of them that I missed!

I am hoping that he gets home this week, but--again-- not holding my breath.

I was going to post some pictures, but I was having difficulty getting them uploaded a while ago-- I will try again tomorrow.

Leeann and Patrick

It's a good thing....

....I didn't hold my breath. Now they are saying at least 3 more days.

Nate may be home Wednesday...

....but we are not holding our breath.

This weekend...

Nate is doing well this weekend. We still do not know when he is coming home, but it should hopefully be sometime soon. He weighs 5 pounds 12 ounces now and is looking more and more like Patrick everyday. He has my nose, but that is about all of my traits he has that we can identify so far. Here are some pics from this weekend. We will keep you posted of any new developments.

Leeann and Patrick

Don't forget you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Once again....

.....they changed their mind. We don't know when he is coming home now.

I am so comfused!!!

Well, after being told that it would be another week before we could bring Nate home, we were told today that is he has a good night tonight, he can come home tomorrow (Tuesday). We are praying for him to have a restful, even keeled, perfectly timed heartbeat night. We will update you tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Patrick and Leeann

Another week.....

probably according the nurse practitioner I spoke with today. Nate had 2 more episodes during the night, which were not accompanied by feeding. He was asleep when they happened. They think he is still refluxing, which is causing the bradycardias, so they increased his Prevacid dose and we will see if that helps. If so, it will be around another week. My original due date was March 16th, so it may be right around then.

Possible snag?

...well, we were set up for possible discharge on Monday. Then last night, Nate had another bradycardia episode (where he drops his heart rate). He was eating when it happened, which is better then if it had happened while he was resting. Now we aren't sure if they will let him leave Monday- they usually like 5-7 days without a bradycardia before discharge. So now we wait to see if A) they keep him longer
b) if they will send him home as planned or C) if they will send him home with a heart monitor. Otherwise, Nate is doing great, he is eating well, maintaining his own temperature, breathing well- he is almost like a healthy newborn at this point. We will keep you updated on his discharge plans.

Leeann and Patrick

Drumroll please.....

.....5 pounds 1 ounce!!!

Nate is doing well this weekend- he is handling 3 bottle feeds a day and tomorrow they may move him to 4 a day. He spit up a couple of times Friday with the bottle feeds, but didn't spit up Saturday or today. He is still occasionally dropping his heart rate and oxygen level. Here are some pics of his new bed. He is getting closer and closer to coming home!!!

"Nana- Why does your name tag say VISITOR?"