One week old

At 11:28pm tonight, Blake will be 1 week old. It's not something we expected.. to be spending this day, Father's Day, in the NICU at Cooks Children's Hospital. Our little guy is a fighter, however, and we continue to see improvements every day. I feel like there's so many people out there praying and rooting for our little boy that there's no way he could do anything except continue to get well.

In the last week a lot has changed. As of yesterday, June 16th, Blake has been off the ventilator. They extubated him at about 10am and it went very well. The one thing working against him right now is that he is still working way too hard to breathe. He's doing it all on his own, though they did put in a nasal cannula with just air to help push the air into his little body. The doctor this morning said that what we're waiting on to move forward is for his respiration to slow down. Once that happens they can start teaching him to eat from a bottle and wean him off of the TPN and feeding tube. The TPN (which is basically fats & nutrients through an IV) is the only thing keeping me from being able to hold him. The line for it is going into his belly button and they are very careful with it. If it comes out, not only is it very hard to get another IV in, but it's going into a main artery and can cause a whole lot of bleeding and would start a whole new hurdle for him.

They took him off the bili lights a couple of days ago, and then yesterday he was put back on them, as his bilirubin levels were trending upwards and were at 15. Now it's been 24 hours and another check shows it down to 9.5 so they went ahead and took the light off. He is currently withdrawing from versed which is a narcotic they were giving him to basically knock him out so that he wasn't thrashing around with the feeding and oxygen tubes, so that he would sleep and heal. It's been about 36 hours since his last dose and last night was rough... he shakes and cries (which he can now do without the tubes.. so sad). Now that they took off the bili lights, they're able to swaddle him and tuck him in and he finally seems to be resting peacefully.

Matthew left on Friday for Colorado. Poppy and Mimi are taking good care of our little boy and I know he's better off there than surrounded by the confusion and chaos that's going on at home. I sure do miss him and could really go for some hugs & kisses from my munchkin. I get tears in my eyes just writing about him and thinking about how empty my heart is without him here with me. It's only been a day and a half and I already can't stand it. :(

I will continue to update here when I remember. Hopefully Blake will continue to improve and I'll be able to hold him, feed him, and do more to comfort him while he cries. Until then we're just hoping and praying for the day to come where he's well enough to come home.