We're HOME!

Yes its true after 103 days in the NICU we are finally home. Bryce was discharged today at 10:30am... Its wonderful. Scary but wonderful. Short post today I'll catch up later in the week.

Thought we were going home soon, but nope!

Hi
Well I haven't been posting lately because I have been working REAL hard trying to get Bryce home. We thought maybe we would be able to come home this past week but he is having trouble with his feedings. He is still needing to be fed with a gavage tube and he can't come home until he is all bottle fed. I will be moving into the hospital Sunday for a few days trying to breastfeed all feedings to see if he will eat better that way. We'll see... Lets hope it works. He has had a few yucky days the past few days. Last night he lost 40 grams which is a big loss for a baby, but he is 4lbs. 11 oz. He also has been acting kind of funny lately, just not himself. They did a renal ultrasound 2 days ago and he still has one enlarged kidney with fluid around it and now he has calcium deposits in BOTH kidneys. I guess this is pretty common in preemies. It also looks like he may have a kidney stone. They sent off a urine culture today to see if there is any blood in it. I don't know what if anything they will do about the kidney stones, I'll just have to wait and see. I want him to come home so bad, I don't even know what to do with myself anymore. It seems like my world is falling apart lately..... It sucks.It so strange because even with all the support I get from everyone I am still feeling so alone in this whole thing, I don't really know why. I just wish he didn't have to go through all of this and he could just be home with me.... I'm sure everyone that has a sick baby feels this way too, but I don;t like it. I am such a miserable person now (not that I wasn't before) But its MUCH worse now. I am a walking time bomb. I just cry all the time and I feel like I can;t be happy about anything anymore. I even tried to go to the beach (Thanks Bri and Jess) and I did have fun, but I felt guilty ALLLL day and then was just miserable. I'm sure I am no fun to be around anymore, I even think the nurses and docs in the NICU are getting sick of me. I'm Getting sick of me. ANYWAY, I will stop complaining now, I just needed to get that out. So strange to think its been 97 days since Bryce has been born, even though sometimes it seems like time might be going by slow, it has actually gone by SSOOO fast. If I was still pregnant I would still have 2 weeks left until my due date. Strange huh? I wonder what I would look like right now???? Oooo thats kind of a scary thought... I would be HUGE! But I can say that I would much rather be huge right now than to have to have Bryce going through this. Thanks again for everyones support through all this. Oh and I will try to get some more pictures soon. But you can trust me when I say HE IS SOOOO CUTE! I can't even stand it!

No Oxygen!

Yes, its true Bryce is off ALL oxygen! It happened on Thursday, but I didn't want to say anything right away because I was afraid I would jinx it. Now thats its been 5 days I figured I would break the news. He is doing GREAT with out it. His sats are good almost all the time, only sometimes when he is eating he will drop a little but not too bad. Also some more good news, it sounds like we could be coming come very soon. I was told 2-3 weeks.... We'll see! I can't even believe this is something I have to think about now. It seemed like the day would never come. I feel like I am in the twilight zone! Its great news of course, but at the same time I'M SCARED! He probably won't come home on a monitor, so I will probably never sleep again. There are a few things that have to happen though before he can come home... He has to #1 no longer need gavage tube for feeding. #2 Consistently gain weight. #3 No Desats, Apneas or Bradys for 5 consecutive days. Anyway in other news.... He had a head scan yesterday and all the bleeds and echoes in the brain are GONE! This is also GREAT news, this is one of the things I worried about the most. Also Dr. McCabe (eye surgeon) came today and said his eyes look much better than they did. He said the Plus disease is gone and the vessels have moved to stage 2 (it was Stage 3) so this is all great news as well. (Knock on wood things continue on this good news path) I have definitely determined that prayer has been the reason for all this. There is no other explanation. For those of you who know my whole story from day 1 I bet would agree with me, the stuff we have been through and where we are now... Its truly amazing.

Eye Surgery

So as you can see it's been a while since I last updated.... Well heres whats been happeneing...

I started working last week from home a few hours a week. So the few hours that I have, have been spent working so I haven't been able to update. Then yesteray I went back to work in the office. It was a nice change... Hard but nice.
As far as Bryce goes he has been doing well he is now 4lbs. 6.2 oz. Huge huh? Things have been pretty quiet as of this morning he was down to .75 flow and 21 O2 (basically nothing) So thats been great and he's been feeding well. He has had a few eye exams in the meantime and things were staying pretty stable..... Until this afternoon. Dr. McCabe came to check his eyes around 1pm, and Bryce was in surgery at 9:30 pm. I am just getting home now and its 12:30am. The surgery went great, actually the doctor said Bryce was one of his best so far. But about an hour after the surgery Bryce hd a BIG spell he desatted VERY low and pretty much stopped breathing. The nurses were able to get him back but it was pretty scary, they said its from the sedation. By the time I left the hospital he was back satting at 100% and starting to wake up. Hopefully the night will only get better. Oh and before the surgery they put in back on VapoTherm in hopes they wouldn't have to intubate him and out him back on the vent and so far so good. Lets pray he holds steady then he can ho back on cannula tomorrow or the next day! Well thats all for now, I need to sleep. (as best as I can) Good Night or morning at this point!