Category: reflections

An update on our boys…

For those of you following on Facebook, Twitter and the like you probably know the boys were born at 2:36 on Thursday afternoon.

H-Diddy weighed in at 4 lbs 14 oz, 18.25″ and I-Diddy weighed in at 4 lbs 11 oz, 18″.

They were both taken immediately to the newborn nursery for observation — so our time with them was uber-limited.

And even after Laurie made it out of recovery and to her new room — she couldn’t even get out to see them through the nursery window like I could.

It was determined right away that both of them were struggling with the transition from the womb to the real world. Essentially they both still had amniotic fluid in their lungs and were working to get it out.

H-Diddy was stuggling a bit more than I-Diddy and so they decided it was best to take him to the NICU for closer observation.

We were able to spend about 5 minutes with him before they carried him away. I was able to see him along with his grandparents but Laurie was still left out as she was left to recover in her room.

And it wasn’t until 10 or 11 pm that night that I-Diddy overcame the transition and was released from the close observation he was under. They brought him into the room and we were both able to spend 30 minutes or so before we let him go back to the nursery so we could all get some needed sleep.

Throughout the day Friday Laurie continued to recover enough to get up out of bed and make her way down to the NICU to see Hayden before lunch. They had taken him off oxygen but he was back on oxygen by the end of the day.

Saturday morning he took a turn for the worse and they had to increase his oxygen levels and discovered he had pneumothorax on each sides of his lungs. They did a needle aspiration on his left side to remove the air on his left side and put him in an oxygen hoodie (think astronaut helmet) with 100% oxygen throughout the day.

They did another X-ray at 5 p.m. and decided while he had improved, he should remain on the same treatment.

And beyond what I discuss in the video, he has sense had another X-ray this morning and they’ve reduced the oxygen to 40% and upped his feeding to 20 mL. They’re still feeding him by a feeding tube and waiting until his respiration rate stays below 60 or 70 respirations per minute. They plan to continue on the oxygen treatment and we hope this will help him recover/heal on his own. Otherwise he seems to be doing really well.

I-Daddy is also doing extremely well, eating between 30-50 mL every few hours and doing everything a boy his age should do.

There’s no real timeline on how long before H-Diddy will be released from the NICU and ready to come home with us — but we’re hoping it won’t be much longer.

The last two years have often sucked as we’ve struggled with our infertility — but all of that pales in comparison to seeing your newborn boy hooked to monitors and various machines and knowing you can’t hold him and comfort him like you want to.

We’re so blessed to have both of them now — and to know that H-Diddy is on the road to recovery. Things could be so much worse — but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it hurts like hell.

Thanks so much for all the prayers, comments and encouragement we’ve received across the Interwebs (and from around the world). Please keep H-Diddy in your prayers – and pray for Laurie and I as we struggle to wait patiently for his recovery and full release.