Almost One Week Old

We experienced some progress and some scares with Ryan today. First thing this morning the primary neonatologist stopped by and said that he had decided to turn Ryan's nasal cannula airflow pressure down to a 1/4 liter. He also said that the lab result for Ryan's bilirubin from early in the morning was lower than it had previously been, so for now he has discontinued the light therapy (though this value may rebound later, so he has another lab draw to test his bilirubin scheduled for tomorrow morning). Ryan again repeatedly pulled out his nasal cannula today. I looked away for a second, and the next thing I knew, it was around his neck, hanging mostly out of his nose, or it was actually in his mouth. So when the doctor did rounds at 10am, he decided that we could discontinue the nasal cannula airflow completely since Ryan had pulled it out so many times already and his stats had remained okay. His nurse this morning found a onesie for him to wear since he doesn't have an IV anymore and it is no longer as critical to be able to view his respirations. So now the only wires/tubes attached to Ryan are the leads to monitor his heart rate, respiration rate, and oxygen saturation level, and his nasal-gastric tube. I have been attempting to nurse him at the beginning of each feeding, and he seems to slowly be getting the hang of it but gets cozy and sleepy quickly. The rest (which, for now, is the vast majority) of his feeding is given to him through his nasal-gastric tube. What is kind of neat is that his nurses can extract the air from his belly using a syringe before they give him the nasal-gastric feedings. Wish getting rid of gas from his belly could be that easy once we get him home!
Ryan gave us a couple of scares today. His oxygen saturation level had been staying in the high nineties to 100 and continued to do so when his nasal cannula was first taken entirely away. However, later in the day he drifted into the mid- eighties for awhile on a few occasions, but eventually returned to higher numbers. If he stays in the low to mid- eighties for very long or has repeated short periods of numbers this low, then he would have to go back to using the nasal cannula. Fortunately at this point he hasn't "hung out" with low values long enough to warrant taking this step back. Another random scare was that his monitor went into high alarm for his heart rate this afternoon. He had a very brief incident of brachyardia (slowing of the heart rate) where the rate dipped way down, but then recovered quickly while he was in a deep sleep. Our nurse said that typically the neonatologists want to monitor babies who have had a bradycardia incident in the NICU for 5 days afer the incident occurred to ensure that no more similar episodes happen. Another nurse didn't think that one episode would warrant preventing him from coming home if he is able to get up to speed on eating enough to be ready for discharge in less than 5 days. We'll have to wait and see what the neonatologist on duty this weekend thinks about it tomorrow.

The nurses keep saying that Ryan will all of a sudden "get" how to nurse, so I am hopeful that this happens soon. Please pray that he is able to get into a normal pattern of feedings, takes less through the N-G tube, and also that the bradycardia episode is nothing to worry about.

My dad came to visit Ryan today and took some cute photos of him. He looks so much better without the scalp IV and nasal cannula!

Ryan in my lap with his WubbaNub (pacifier with a stuffed dog attached). The stuffed animal helps anchor the pacifier so that it doesn't fall out. Ethan had the same WubbaNub when he was in the NICU.

Ryan peacefully sleeping
I love the pose, chin resting on his hand