June 21, 2012- Rough day in the NICU

We had a rough day in the NICU today.  I went in to see Will at 11am and I found that he was on 2.5 Liters of high flow.  I was expecting him to be on 1.5 Liters, so this was a shock.  Our favorite nurse was on, and she came in and told me that Will was breathing pretty fast this morning when she came on and he was retracting.  She increased his oxygen to keep him comfortable and ease his breathing.  He was doing better for awhile.  I went to rounds and talked to the doctor about my concerns regarding his oxygen requirement.  He said that Will will tell us when he is ready to be weaned and that this was a minor setback.  He decided to decrease Will's feedings in case the amount of fluid was overloading his ability to breathe well.  I felt comfortable with the plan, so I left to go to my doctor's appt.

When I came back a couple of hours later, I found Will's oxygen need had increased to 3 Liters!  His nurse came in and said that after I left, his breathing was really fast, he was retracting and his work of breathing was increased.  The nurse practitioner ordered a chest xray and again, it showed atelectasis, but it looked better than the previous xray on Sunday.  The nurse practitioner asked if I had received steroids in the last few days of my pregnancy to help mature Will's lungs and I said yes.  She said that preemie babies tend to do really well the first week while the steroids are still in their body and then the babies tend to need more oxygen as the steroids leave their system.  This made sense to me, but it was still hard to digest since Will was doing so well just a week ago.  Due to this setback, the nurse and I discussed whether Brandon and I should hold Will today since we didn't want to stress him out more than he had been earlier in the day.  I decided that, in the best interest of Will, we shouldn't hold him.  I was okay with this decision until we were ready to leave the NICU tonight.  The thought of not holding my son broke my heart!  Brandon and I look forward to holding Will and snuggling him.  I hated leaving him without comforting him and loving on him today.  We are hoping that Will stabilizes tonight so he has a good day tomorrow and so we can hold him tomorrow. 

The good news is that Will gained another 20 grams and weighs 3 pounds 13 ounces!  3 more ounces and he can move into an open top crib!  We are hoping that he can make that change this weekend!