Victoria convinced me to get out the camera before she went home today. I took some pictures of her and Ethan, then I found his little bear and decided to take more pictures. I took photos of him with the bear when he was 2 1/2 weeks old. Now he’s almost 12 weeks old, and you can really see how much he’s grown:

You can find the rest of the pictures here: Ethan – 12 weeks photo album

Ethan had a really great first Christmas. He got lots of nice gifts and got to meet lots of his relatives. We traveled to Jackson, MS to stay with his Nana and Grandpa Jim for a few days. He got to meet his Great Uncle John and Great Aunt Beverly, cousins Rob, Russ, and Anna, and Great Grandma Estes. He also got to see his Uncle Matt and Aunt Jess who he hadn’t seen since he was born. Uncle Andy and Elise were there too.

On Christmas Day we headed back home to see the rest of the family. At Mimi and Grandpa Gary’s (or the Dude or Pops or whatever we will call him) house, he got to meet Great Auntie Tracy, Great Uncle Larry, and Great Uncle Jim. Aunt Carol and Jimmy came all the way from North Carolina to see Ethan for Christmas. He really enjoyed cuddling with Uncle Jimmy. Granny Carolyn, Papa JC, Granny Rita, and Papa Jack were also there, as well as Great Uncle Kevin. Auntie Vicky and Auntie Allie were there too.

Auntie Victoria has been in town this week, and Ethan is sad that she will go back to Dallas tomorrow. He has really nice nap time with Auntie Vicky.

Some Christmas Pictures are here: Christmas 2007 Photo Album

I went to Pam’s blog this morning and was reminded of how lucky we are that Ethan had only a minor hospital stay with RSV. Now that her preemies are home, she reminded her readers of the rules of visiting and handling the boys, and she provided a link to a film to really send the point home. Click here and skip to the 6 minute mark of the film. I’ll warn you that its very sad and scary. This could very easily have been Ethan had we not caught his RSV infection so early.

If you ever wonder why we’re so careful with him, that is why. He really came out of the hospital unscathed. His only issue is that his lungs are temporarily weaker than they were before, which leaves him more prone to future respiratory infections. That is why he ended up with a pretty serious case of pneumonia 2 weeks after getting over RSV. We are very lucky.

And while he is unlikely to get another serious RSV infection, he CAN become infected again. And since his lungs are weaker (first because he was premature, second because of his RSV infection, third because of his pneumonia), it would hit him pretty hard. That is why I give him breathing treatments several times a day, and why we barely leave the bedroom where the humidifier runs. That is why we can’t bring him out with lots of people around, and why we have rules about visiting. I’ll repost them as a reminder (borrowing the preemie visitation rules from Pam):

1. If you’ve been sick within the past ten days, you cannot visit.
2. If you’ve been around children who have been sick in the past ten days, you cannot visit.
3. You must wash your hands and use hand sanitizer before being around the baby.
4. Children are not allowed to handle the baby.
5. You must have your flu shot before you can touch the baby.

I’m done talking about scary stuff. Now its time to talk about good things. Ethan weighs 9 pounds now and he is no longer fitting in the newborn clothes. I still put him in his newborn sleepers and onesies, but they are stretched to the max. He is wearing a newborn footed sleeper right now and he can’t stretch his legs out, hehe. We need to retire the newborn stuff and get a few more sleepers in the 0-3 size. I think he is going to continue to gain lots of weight because he has a very good appetite. He eats alot and he eats often, and he dirties a LOT of diapers. I feel like I can barely keep up with him.

I can wear Ethan in his sling carriers now. I no longer feel like he’s being smooshed in them. He can sit in his bumbo seat (on top of the refrigerator, unattended, because that’s how he rolls, haha). He is also starting to roll over. Its not consistent, but from time to time he does figure out how to roll from his tummy to his back. He smiles and laughs a lot. When he sees us in the morning, the first thing he does is stretch out a huge grin. He’s starting to become interested in his toys and he loves to look at EVERYTHING.

Ethan had his 2 month shots yesterday. He was acting like a tough guy and only cried for about 3 seconds after each shot. The nurse was very impressed with him. I guess after all the IVs and catheters and other hospital things, the silly little shots were no big thing to him. Of course, after we got home he let down the tough guy image and let me know he didn’t like the shots. I gave him tylenol throughout the day and he slept quite a bit. But once the evening rolled around he was back to his happy self.

He was really hungry after the extra sleep he had yesterday. He nursed from 9pm until 11:30pm before he finally fell asleep. Yes, for 2 1/2 nonstop hours he ate!! He was really hungry and tanking up for a long night. He slept in his pack n play again, and he slept for 5 whole hours!!! YAY!

Ethan slept all by himself in his pack n play last night. I thought I would give it a try since he is feeling much better now, and he did great. He didn’t sleep quite as well as he does in the bed with me, but he did well enough. I enjoy spending time with him and don’t mind cuddling, but we don’t want to get him in the habit of sleeping in our bed if he can sleep fine in his pack n play. Once he’s off the apnea monitor and sleeping longer through the night, we’ll move him to his real crib in his room.

He had a followup appointment with his pulmonologist yesterday, and that went really well. He said Ethan’s lungs sounded beautiful and was way too healthy to have any more visits to that clinic. This doctor only sees babies and kids with lung issues, and as much as we like the doctor, we’re glad that we don’t have to see him anymore. He said we can cut back on Ethan’s xopenex treatments, so that means no more middle of the night nebulizer treatments. He told me to give Ethan a xopenex treatment only if he sounded like he was getting congested. And he said we only have to continue the pulmicort for another month while Ethan’s lungs heal from the pneumonia. That is very good news because he is starting to really dislike the breathing treatments. He pulls the mask off his face or wiggles until it is out of place. Then he’ll pull the airhose out or he will lick the mask, which is really odd…

I also added a few family pictures to the photo album. The link to the photo album is on the side menu of the blog.

We came home from the hospital last night but not without a little drama first…

Tuesday night Ethan was a bit of a pain throughout the night… He kept vomiting up his meal and immediately acting like he was starving. I spent a good portion of the night nursing, burping, and cleaning up spit up. He’s always been quite a spitter, but it had progressed to projectile vomiting. I had to change clothes several times, but he pretty much stayed clean because it was spewing away from his body onto me. He was spitting up so much that he wasn’t making very wet diapers. He was still peeing, but not very much. And they were concerned that he wasn’t pooping very much or very often. On Wednesday morning, after watching him projectile all over me, the nurse practitioner decided that it was pretty serious, and ordered an upper GI study to be performed on Ethan. There was a possibility that his vomiting was due to pyloric stenosis, which is a thickening of the muscle that empties the stomach into the duodenum.

His doctor really doubted that pyloric stenosis was his issue, but they wanted to check to be sure because pyloric stenosis requires a surgery. The doctor said that he thought all the drainage, phelgm being coughed up from the lungs, and the breathing treatments were irritating Ethan’s stomach causing him to vomit so much. He also thought that Ethan was developing severe reflux and the upper GI might reveal that as well. He was already being given Zantac in the hospital because they thought he had reflux.

I doubted the reflux because his pneumograms performed in the NICU showed that he did not have reflux. And the Zantac didn’t seem to be helping him as he was still spitting up a lot with or without it. The doctor said that reflux can come and go, and that he was probably developing it. He said that we may have to switch Ethan to a formula for reflux and add rice cereal to help thicken it. Not what I wanted to hear… I don’t want him to be on formula.

anyway…. The Upper GI was really interesting. They told me not to feed him anymore that day and wait till he was starving to perform the test. He had to drink the barium drink, so they wanted to make sure he was hungry enough to take it even if it tasted bad. Well, he must have really liked it because he drank a LOT of it and didn’t complain at all. I watched the screen while they did the test. It was really interesting to see the mechanics of him sucking on the bottle and gulping down the liquid. It filled up his belly, then it started to empty into his intestines. That meant that he does not have pyloric stenosis. Amazingly, he DID NOT spit up a single drop of the barium drink. His test showed no signs of reflux either, although it is not a definitive test for reflux.

I waited around in his room for a while waiting to see if the doctor or anyone would come check on us and let us go home. Eventually I went to the nurses station to inquire. She said that the doctor didn’t write orders for us to go home, so we needed to stay the night. I asked her if we could go home even if he didn’t write the orders, and she said that yes we could, but insurance companies don’t like that and may not pay the bill. She offered to call the doctor and see if he would release us because she knew we were so ready to be out of the hospital. The doctor called back quickly and released us. He didn’t seem to be worried about the spit up and vomiting and sent Ethan home on his regular diet. No restrictions – just to continue his breathing treatments, follow up with his regular doc on Friday, and follow up with him in his office on Tuesday.

I did consult with the lactation department before we left to make sure that there wasn’t anything that I could be doing to make my milk acidic or disagreeable with Ethan. She reassured me that wasn’t the case, and gave me some pointers to help if he has reflux. She told me to nurse him as upright as possible, and every time he moved to take him off and burp him. Nurse him as long as he wants and as often as he wants, and burp him continuously throughout the meal. She also suggested that instead of bottle feeding him with rice cereal added, we could try feeding him a teaspoon of rice cereal by spoon before nursing him if we needed to thicken his meal. She said that if he does has reflux he should certainly continue to eat breastmilk because it is much less caustic than any of the formulas and would be the least irritating to Ethan’s stomach.

Soooo… after all that, we are back at home. Very tired today… Ethan is a bit confused about day time and night time again. He ate continuously from about 2 in the morning until about 4:30, same as he did the night before. Before getting sick, he would cluster feed in the late evening, and sleep well at night, waking only once to eat. I’m not sure how to get him back on that schedule, but I figure he will get it straightened out soon enough. The good thing about last night is that while he was spitting up last night, it was not nearly as much as the night before. Neither of us had to change clothes a single time, woo hooo.

Dr. Hernandez is pleased with Ethan’s recovery, but he wanted to keep us for one more day just to make sure. He took Ethan out of his tent and scaled back his nebulizer treatments to 4x per day. Ethan’s IV came out, so he ordered them to stop antibiotics. The doctor wants to mimic the environment at home and see how Ethan does before we go home. And if he does well, we will very likely be going home tomorrow. So far, so good. He’s been out of the oxygenated and humidified air for about 12 hours now, and he’s breathing just fine.

I was concerned that he was spitting up alot, but the doctor said he thinks it is nothing to be worried about as it contains a lot of mucous. As the pneumonia breaks up, Ethan coughs it up and swallows it. He said that all the breathing treatments and all the mucous are upsetting Ethan’s stomach and causing the spit up and vomiting. He put him on Zantac to help. It may reduce the amount of spitup, and it will definitely decrease his stomach acid and make him more comfortable when he does spit up. Ethan has lost about half a pound, but that was to be expected. He didn’t eat more than a few ounces per day for about 4 days. And he cried for hours and hours, which burns a lot of calories. Eating was so hard for him to do that he was burning extra calories there too. He has gotten his full appetite back in the last day or so. Now he is ravenous, so I’m sure he’ll be hefty again in no time.

We have an appointment to follow up with Dr. Hernandez next week. We’ll see him again tomorrow and hopefully, we will be headed home.

Ethan is still not well enough to go home. He’s having difficulty breathing when he takes his bottle, and he’s started gulping down air again. The doctor wants to wait another day and see how he is tomorrow.

We saw the doctor again this morning and he had some mixed news. Ethan is doing really well, and he’s happy with the progress that he’s made. But, his x-ray showed a new spot of pneumonia in his lung. The pneumonia they found on Tuesday was in the upper right lung, and now there is pneumonia in the lower right lung. The doctor decided to start him on antibiotics again and we’ll do another chest x-ray in the morning. It is possible that he will go home tomorrow, but I’m not betting on it.

He really does seem to be feeling better. He’s happier and hungrier. He made all sorts of cute baby noises today, and we even had a little photo shoot. (new pictures added to the end of the Photo Album) Aaron spent most of the weekend here with us, and that made Ethan very happy to be able to cuddle with Dad. He would fall asleep on his daddy’s chest and he would cry when I had to put him back in the tent. He can spend greater amounts of time out of his oxygen tent before his breathing becomes labored. But even if he’s feeling better, we still need to stay here until he’s far along the road to recovery. We don’t want to get home and have his condition worsen, then have to come back for even more time in the hospital.

I asked the doctor if he thought we were doing too much with Ethan – exposing him to too many people. And what should we do about Christmas. He said that you can’t live in a bubble, but you can take precautions. Yes, we can take him places, but don’t take him anywhere crowded. Yes, people can hold him, but only if they are well and have washed their hands with antibacterial soap. He said that he would see Ethan in his office before Christmas and at that time we would talk about what we should do for the holidays.

Ethan turned 2 months old yesterday! YAY! He spent his 2 month birthday in the hospital, wooo hoooo.

Last night, mom stayed here with me to help through the night so that I could get some rest. Ethan must have needed the moral support because with his Mimi here, he behaved himself and we all got lots of rest. He has started to feel much better. He actually slept for 2 3.5 hour periods last night, instead of the frequent waking and crying he has been doing throughout his hospital stay.

Today he really seems to be feeling better. When he woke up at 7:30 this morning, he was pleasant and seemed to be feeling like his usual happy self. He didn’t wake up screaming and crying. We changed his diaper and he talked and smiled. He also took down 2.5 ounces from the bottle before he tuckered out.

His pulmonologist came in to check on him this morning. He said that Ethan was doing so well they would start to scale back some of his treatments and see how he responds. He could possibly go home tomorrow night, depending on how he does with the reduced treatments.

I will keep everyone updated when I know more.

There’s not a whole lot to say, but I figured I would post something…

Ethan’s chest X-ray today was an improvement over the first one, but he certainly doesn’t seem like he feels any better. He’s not running a high fever anymore – just a mid grade fever once or twice per day. But he pretty much cries continuously while he’s awake, and he wimpers, grunts, and grimaces in his sleep. He has really bad gas from all the crying and labored breathing. He can’t nurse or take a bottle without gulping down a ton of air. Its a tough cycle… He has trouble breathing, so he ends up gulping air. All the air builds up and causes pain so he tenses up and breathes even harder. He gets so tense he can’t really burp or fart all that well, and his belly ends up blowing up like a balloon. His belly was so distended today, they ordered an x-ray just to make sure that there wasn’t some other problem. As often as they can they give him a tylenol suppository and some mylicon and he will calm down and “deflate”. As soon as the tylenol wears off, it all starts again.

He does wake up and want food a little more often now. And he’s not losing weight. Let’s hope that he continues to maintain or gain a little because he’s already behind from all the weight he lost with RSV.