Update June 10 to June 17

June 10:

Jack is growing! He is 2 pounds today and 12.8 inches long. It is a lot of work growing this much! We came in this morning to find his respirator settings back up to their highest levels. By the end of the day he was breathing a little better, so they lowered his respirator settings a little. They are going to be lowering his setting very slow this time to give him more time to adjust to each level. He was still on room air most of the day, so that is still a good thing to hold onto. Jack is so cute and Molly and I love being able to see his eyes. He does the cutest thing when he wakes up. He peeps one eye open just a tiny bit then sometimes he opens them up and sometimes he doesn't. It is almost like he is peeking to see if it is worth the effort to open his eyes. I think he learned this from Molly because she does the same thing when she wakes up and is still tired.

June 11:

Well, they raised his respirator setting back up again after a few bad blood tests. His blood tests haven't been terrible, but again, they are just being more cautious this time around. I really wish that they could have got that arterial line in Jack. It breaks my heart every time I look at his feet because they are starting to bruise from all the pricks. Jack doesn't like to be pricked either. He gets the saddest crinkle face when they do it and my heart melts. I know it is for his own good, but it doesn't make me want to switch places with him any less. He is a fighter though, so he will tough it out.

It is interesting to think, but it was pointed out that, while the doctors make it a big priority to keep Jack comfortable with pain medication, for Jack, he doesn't know anything different. For him this stuff has been a normal part of life from day 1, so it may not be AS uncomfortable because he doesn't know what comfortable is. Don't worry Jack, soon you will learn and you will think back about how awesome you really were.

June 12:

Jack had a really good day and night today. He has had consistently good blood tests and they are bringing his respirator settings down slowly. Sometimes more slowly than Dad would (don't you know that I have become an expert at reading these tests) :). They did another chest x-ray and found that his left lung had cleared out pretty good, but that he still had a lot of white on the right side. However, we are happy to see an x-ray that is better than the last. Jack seems to really like room air as he was able to maintain room air almost all night and most of today. These are all good steps in the right direction!

In other news, Jack has grown enough to get more breast milk. The chunker is now getting 6 ML every hour. This kid is definitely breaking our grocery budget! They are adding calories (formula) to Molly's breast milk to help him grow faster. They switched their added formula to a new brand today because the brand they were using has been known to raise the acid levels in babies. Jack's last blood test showed him a little acidic, so they are switching to a different brand. They say he will probably continue to switch back and forth as his blood work shows different needs. I swear if Jack sneezes weird they know about it and make an adjustment. Poor kid gets a lot of tests done.

June 13-14:

Call me a bad parent, but  I forgot to do an update on the 13th. I think Friday the 13th was just unlucky for the blog, so we are combining it with the 14th.

These two days have been extra busy for Jack. First, they did another brain scan to check on his level 1 bleed. They found that the level 1 bleed was still there, was still reabsorbing into the brain, and appeared to be resolving. They will check again in 2 weeks and we hope that the bleed is gone all together. Second, they did another chest x-ray to check on his lungs. The x-ray showed that his lungs were a little better and they are sitting in the not fantastic, but not terrible range. Third, they have continued their blood tests and Jack has continued to test well and has gone down on his respirator settings over both days while maintaining room air. Fourth, Jack had another blood transfusion. Molly and I came about an hour after they started it and Jack looked so uncomfortable. Unfortunately, during a blood transfusion they can't feed Jack which also means that they can't give Jack his pain meds. The nurse decided it was time to try the pacifier to see if we could soothe him. It helped so much! Because of his feeding and air tube Jack couldn't keep it in his mouth by himself, so I held it in for 2 hours for him. I think he loved every minute of it! Finally, Jack has weighed in over 2 pounds for 5 days in a row now. He really looks so much better with a little fat on him!

June 15:

Today started off so well. Jack had another fantastic blood test and the respirator settings were back down to around the lowest settings Jack has ever had. After a few hours on these settings Jack had one of the worst blood tests he has had, so back up on the respirator settings. They are not as high as they have been in the past, but this has definitely knocked off the last 2-3 days of progress. I really hate that it takes so long to come down, but so quick to go back up. He is maintaining room air, so that is one plus! Jack also looks amazing. He looks a lot more comfortable today than he ever has and he looks a lot more healthy today than he ever has.

June 16:

Happy 4 weeks old Jack! Sometimes Molly and I think "Wow, it has already been 4 weeks?!? Time flies!" and other times we think, "Wow, it has ONLY been 4 weeks." Well Jack had another rough night. We are back up to the highest respirator settings we have seen. It is crazy to me that we can spend a week coming down slowly on his settings and then in a 24 hour period he blows back up to even higher than he was before. Jack also thought it would be fun to pull his airtube out again last night, so they had to reincubate him.

There is some silver lining to all of this. First, because Jack has grown they were able to put a bigger air tube down and that could help his breathing because more air is getting down and less is leaking around the sides of his tubes. Second, they did another chest x-ray and found that his lungs were not worse than a few days ago, so that is a good sign. Third, the x-ray revealed that his airtube wasn't positioned very well, so they adjusted the tube and say that should also help his breathing. All in all, we are of course disappointed that his settings are back up, but we are optimistic that they will come back down.

June 17:

Jack has visitors! Rachel (Molly's sister) and her husband Rufus are here to visit for the week. Jack showed off by opening his eyes for them. He liked to hear other familiar voices!

Jack's oxygen needs had gone up over the last few days, but today he steadily made progress and was down to 24% oxygen (remember 21% is room air) by the end of the day. His blood tests have been OK, but not good enough to take his settings back down quite yet. Whenever his settings go up like they did they also want to rule out an infection, so Jack had a few tests done today to make sure he doesn't need antibiotics. Those results should be in tomorrow. Jack's feedings also went up to 6.1 ML per hour!

And now for the part that I know most of you come for, the pictures!

Even Jack Suffers from bed head.

Jack pretending that he can hold his own pacifier. Dad helped him out for the next 2 hours.

Jack has a ticket to the gun show. Do you?

Happy Father's Day this week! Molly and Jack sang me some of the best primary songs!

As unexpectedly living across the country with a baby in the NICU has its fair share of financial implications a fund has been set up to help us with medical, living, and transportation expenses. Any gift is very appreciated, but don't feel obligated to give; however, do feel obligated to pray for us and/or send positive thoughts our way.