Sunday, December 13, 2009

Calgon... Take Me Away!

'Cause Mommy needs a break. And some uninterrupted sleep. Daddy needs some too. I'm not sure exactly what we're dealing with here, but since we came home Wednesday afternoon, Parker has not been sleeping well at all. He screams when he starts getting sleepy, and can keep it up for up to 30-45 minutes at a time before he will finally give it up and go to sleep... only to sleep for about 20 minutes, then wakes up screaming again. Perhaps the after-affects of anesthesia? At least at night he sleeps for two hour stretches before he starts screaming again. Ha. Right. Great.

Other than the fighting sleep thing, we are doing pretty well. The feeding is still really slow and sporadic, but beginning to improve. As far as his general demeanor, he is definitely back to his normal babbling, laughing, busy self. He's even managed two developmental milestones this week. He learned to clap and he's scooting everywhere. Fast. If we sing Pat-a-Cake to him, he will start to clap. Soooo cute!

Daddy and I are still trying to decide whether or not he will be able to go back to school tomorrow because the feeding is still not going as well as we would like, and we need to monitor his intake. They do great monitoring his intake at school, but we don't want to make his teachers nervous, and they have seven other little ones to look after as well. So, we may be home for the next couple of days, we'll just have to wait and see.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

My Baby is Amazing!

Parker is a rock star! He has had a really good day today! He has still been a bit fussy, but I think it's more related to a gassy tummy and fighting sleep than being in pain. He is so afraid he is going to miss something and never wants to go to sleep - even on Tylenol with codeine! We weaned him off the morphine last night and onto the Tylenol with codeine. Good thing too, since the "mule" as I call him, (because he kicks so much and so hard) kicked out that hard-fought-for IV this morning. That meant he had to start drinking more by mouth and no more morphine, since it can only be given intravenously. I was determined there was no way they were going to stick him again after our experience last night, so he had no choice but to start drinking.

I was able to give him a good bath this morning and clean him up. He had a lot of dried blood in his nose that I was able to get cleaned out. We were able to put his own PJ's on him since we didn't have an IV anymore. You could tell it made him feel so much better, and he looked like my baby again.

He's still refusing his bottle and just does so-so with the syringe, so we've had to feed him with a straw. When we go out to eat we sometimes will dip a straw into water then dribble it into his mouth. Well, he loves that and now it's the only way we can get him to drink. It takes forever to feed him, but it's working, so we're keeping at it. He did eat a whole container of applesauce this afternoon for us, so that was encouraging!

Dr. Burstein came by to see us at lunch and said if Parker continued to drink well we could go home this evening if we want. We're going to see how the next couple of hour go, but we will probably wait until tomorrow morning to go.

We took Parker on a walk this afternoon to the lobby to get a change of scenery. There's a really cool donor recognition wall that has a background of a virtual aquarium. He loved looking at it as well as the Christmas decorations. Here's some photos from our outing. Will post more soon!











Monday, December 7, 2009

Surgery Day Update!

Parker is doing well tonight after his palate repair and ear tube surgeries this morning. Brian and I were amazed at how quickly Dr. Burstein and Dr. Yaunta completed his surgeries! Within 45 minutes he was totally done. Amazing! He's pretty groggy tonight, still trying to overcome the effects of the anesthesia and he's also being given morphine for pain. Hopefully we can wean him down to Tylenol 3 later this evening. The nurses say it's a bit more effective and lasts longer. Hopefully we can all get some sleep tonight! A friend I met on the Baby Center Message Board that had her daughter's palate repair here a month ago gave us the tip that they would bring a regular bed for Parker and I to sleep in if we asked. Thanks December! They're bringing our big bed now!

For those of you who know how nervous I have been, you'll be happy to know I held it together pretty well. A few tears when they came to take him back, then I did well. Waiting is so hard, but thankfully it took less time than we expected, so that definitely helped.

We are in room 101 at Scottish Rite. Once we got to the room they brought Parker to us. He's had quite a bit of bleeding from his mouth and nose, but it has gotten progressively lighter thoughtout the evening and has pretty much stopped now. He's shown some signs of his regular self - he's given Dad and I a few smiles tonight and is doing quite a bit of kicking, which is one of his favorite things to do!!!

The one bit of trauma this afternoon was a red, puffy IV site which caused the nurses to decide they had to pull it and call the IV team to re-start it. Well, it took three sticks and about 30 minutes before they could get it started. Dad and I both were about to become unglued, and Parker raised holy h-e-double hockey sticks. I don't blame him - those catheters HURT! I don't know if I could have endured three times myself, I still remember the IV stick being one of the most painful parts of my labor and delivery with him. Hopefully that will be the last bit of trauma while we are here. Now, we've just got to work on eating so we can get home.

I'll leave you all with some photos of the day, and will post more tomorrow after we (hopefully) get some sleep!

Thanks for all of the prayers, encouragement, calls and e-mails. We appreciate it more than you know!










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