Christmas pics~

Christmas pics...

Merry Christmas...

Merry Christmas to all. Christmas is a great time of year to reflect on the birth of baby Jesus and for us to reflect on the birth of our little miracle baby. Dylan is doing great!! Mommy was able to give him another bath today and he didn't even cry one bit, he loved it!! Daddy took pictures so we will post them tomorrow. The even bigger news is that yesterday on Christmas Eve, Dylan got moved into a crib!!!!!! This is great news and another milestone and we are one step closer to going home!! He is loving his new area and mom and dad really love it because we can be closer to him and much easier to change his diapers!! Dylan is weighing in at 4 pounds and 5 ounces now and eating 35 cc's of alternating breastmilk and preemie formula with iron. He is scheduled to have an eye exam this week, we have noticed that his eyes have turned to hazel color like his mom and dad. Dylan is awake a good amount of time now and today after his bath he was wide eyed just staring at himself in the mirror, it was very cute! He is still on a CPAP of 9 and the Dr. notified me today that they will probably go down on the CPAP again this week. Nothing much has changed with Dylan, we are loving every minute of him! We like not having much excitement, that is a very good day. Christmas in the hospital is something we definetly don't want to make a habit of but this year we have a lot to celebrate, being here with our healthy, growing baby boy, we can definetly deal with that. We brought Dylan's presents here for him to help open and we even thought the nurses deserved something for taking care of our precious boy today and being away from their families. We stuffed his stocking and added ornaments to his tree, our littly buddy is in the spirit with his own special preemie santa hat and blanket as well. So from our family to yours, we hope you have had a very Merry Christmas. We sure have and thanks to our families for understanding our new priority in life, being here with our baby and celebrating many things with him. We can't wait until next year when he will be running our house and opening presents on his own, that will definetly be something to smile about! Merry Christmas Dylan & Dalton and to everyone~

Daddy's 30 today...

Today is Brad's 30th birthday and him and Dylan are having a great day! Dylan is weighing in at 4 pounds and 1 1/2 ounces now. He is eating 35 cc's every 3 hours, they are now alternating between breastmilk and preemie formula with iron. The reason for this is to give him extra protein and calories. Dylan this week has decided to pull his CPAP tube out 3 times. One time on Saturday night, one time on Sunday when daddy was holding him and one time last night when mommy got there. All of the times with out the CPAP tube or anything assisting him he was stating 100%. This is incredible, but the decided to still put the CPAP tube back in eventhough he was showing them what a big boy he is. The reason they put it back in is because his settings are on 9 and before they like to try the nasal canula they like the CPAP to be at 4. If they switched him right away to a nasal canula he could take a couple steps backwards if he wasn't ready for it and since he is doing so good they decided not to try that yet. Last night he had a hard night, he was up crying all night. So the nurse picked him up and held him for 45 minutes and the little stinker was fine. This makes us feel terrible that we weren't there with him because he is probably getting tired of being lonely and I am sure he is more than ready to come home. Still no time frame has been given to us but we are realistically thinking the end of January some time will probably be close to accurate. So Dylan is doing great, we put a Christmas tree in his room and Santa has already came to visit and brought him a book. So things are great, we are just growing, eating all of his food, breathing good and thanking god that his eyes and tummy are just fine! He had a bath the other night and daddy assisted with it, pictures to come! We love you Dylan and Happy Birthday Daddy!~

Great week / 3 months old on the 15th....

Baby Dylan is having a great week. He had his follow up eye exam yesterday where they actually did a full exam. The doctor had great news, his eyes look great after surgery!!! The doctor was very pleased and said that Dylans' eyes couldn't look better and that he couldn't be happier!! There are still some risks involved. The retina could still detach and Dylan still could have poor eyesight but the chances of those things were about 60% before the surgery and that can be halved since he had the treatment. This is great news!!! They will re-check his eyes in two weeks. The Plus disease he had in his eyes are completly gone and the welds they made are healing nicely. So he is seeing normal right now! His weight is up to 3 pounds and 11 ounces. He is eating 1 full ounce of formula plus 2 cc's additional every 3 hours and loving it!! He is on a CPAP of 11 now and loving that as well. Because of his eyes they are keeping his oxygen >=40-60% right now and he is usually at around 40%. He has had a few spells every couple of days or so where he drops his heartrate and O's but comes back up on his own. This is usually after his feedings which means he may have mild acid reflux or it usually happens when his CPAP tube in his nose needs to be replaced. He is very much awake now usually at least 4 hours if not more a day. He is getting a bath 1-2 times per week and loving the water too. It usually takes him a couple of minutes to get use to the water then he loves it. And those lungs are clear now, when he is mad you really hear the cry loud and clear!! And he will pick up his head if he is on his tummy and move it back and forth and hunch up on his fore arms and knees and scoot. He is getting to be a strong little munchkin. He had a head ultrasound yesterday and it was negative as have been his previous 3, this is tremendous news. They did it because he is at the end of 36 weeks gestation and that is usually when they check it again for preemie babes. Things are great for baby Dylan, prayers are working. We pray every day that he keep breathing good, going potty, growing, eating all of his food and his eyes are just fine. God has blessed us with a miracle baby for sure. 3 months old tomorrow, time has gone by so fast. We love you Dylan and are thanking god that you are with us today~

Pictures we promised...

Hunting weekend...

Daddy is deer hunting this weekend, Dylan is hoping daddy gets a big buck!!! Baby is loving his new room in Bay 2. It is nice and quiet so he can eat, sleep and grow!! He is doing great, eating all of his 28 cc's of food now and weighing in at 3 pounds and 7 ounces. Brad held him the other day and I held him for 2 hours today. He was wide awake the whole time which was nice to be able to look into his eyes and tell him how much I love him, and he even cracked a smile!! Things are quiet on our end and we are wanting it to stay that way. If daddy gets a big deer that will give us enough excitement, he is waiting for the day his new baby and him can do that together! Here are some pictures over the past couple of weeks, he looks great! We are praying every day that Dylan continues to grow, eat, go potty, breathe good and his eyes will be just fine! You are truely a miracle baby Dylan~

Bay 2...

Today is a big day for Dylan, he got moved to Bay 2!!!! He is getting to be an even bigger boy now! Bay 2 is not as critical care as Bay 1 so this is great news. He will go right from Bay 2 to home!!! He was put back on CPAP the day after his eye surgery and has resumed regular feedings 26 cc's every 3 hours with 30k fortifier. He is weighing approx. 3 pounds and 7 ounces!! He is doing great and he looks even better!! Daddy got off work today and was able to be up with Dylan for the big move. Daddy was also able to hold him for almost 2 hours and they both loved every minute of it! One of the eye doctors came yesterday and glanced at his eyes and thought they looked great, the ROP exam will be next week and it still may be too soon to tell if there has been any changes. Dylan is getting more of a little personality now about 1/2 hour before his feedings he gets a little fisty throwing his arms around and crying but as soon as he gets his pants changed and fed he calms himself down wonderfully and goes back to sleep. He is back in his isolet bed and loving it as well. We couldn't expect a new baby to do anything more. There is a wonderful God watching over our precious child and he is truely a miracle and one of Gods own. The days are getting better by the day and we pray we continue on this path towards having our baby home with us very soon~

Post Surgery update...

Dylan came thru eye surgery very well. The Dr. Olson was very pleased with how the surgery went and is very happy with the way it went. He was just getting done with the surgery at about 6:15pm, it took longer than expected but the Dr feels comfortable with how it went. He was very happy that he did not wait to take a look at him until Wednesday. He will recheck his eyes on Wednesday and then one week later. When he dilates his eyes next week it may still be too soon to tell if the surgery worked but the Dr said that the surgery went so good that he will probably not have to have another surgery. The Dr. explained the surgery as that of stopping a forrest fire. He said that sometimes in order to stop the fire you have to make it worse before it gets better. So this is the case with Dylan, the laser basically burns or "lightly damages" the outer part of the retina. This is so the growing blood vessels can't go any further than this "burned" part of the eye. The part that they lasered was the perephrial vision part. He will though be able to see out of that part of the eye eventually but for now lasering this part hopefully will stop the blood vessels from growing any more there and hopefully will also stop the Plus disease blood vessels from getting thicker. So our little man continues to amaze us. He is a gift from God, we are continuing to pray like mad that he gets bigger, stronger and comes home soon. God Bless You Dylan~

Update...

Waiting to hear on the results of the surgery. There are two doctors there the Pedatric Opthamologist and the Retinaologist. They said that Dylans eyes were at Stage 3. Both of the doctors were going to work together. But before when they were putting the vent tube in, one of the Fellow doctors was tilting the bed back to level and when she did this Dylan laughed. She said the staff Dr and her looked at each other so she did it again to see what he would do and when she tilted the bed again, he laughed again! The Fellow Dr said he shouldn't be laughing and the Staff Dr. Klein said, sure he should be laughing afterall he is due to be born in just a month." So that was the enlightning part of the putting the vent tube back in. When Brad and I went to see him after that and before the surgery he was moving around, arching his back and sucking on his fingers. You wouldn't have really know he had been givin sedation at all, what an amazing boy~

Eye Surgery...

Today Dylans opthamologist decided to do his eye exam instead of waiting until Wednesday. The doctor said he had been thinking of Dylan all weekend and wanted to do it today rather than waiting. The exam showed Plus Disease and Zone 2, the doctor was going to get a second oppinion tomorrow and possibly do the surgery tomorrow night but then decided that he better have the laser surgery today. So right now as we wait they are putting his vent tube back in, they have to do this for surgery because they will temporarily paralyze him for the procedure. During the procedure they will basically laser off the extra blood vessels and weld the retina where it needs to be. They will do between 500 and 3,000 welds to do this. I believe the Dr. told me there is a 1 and 5 chance of blindeness from this or a 20% chance. Most of the time this does work and babies eyes will be fine. The other times there could be severe eye damage or blindeness. But we know that God is watching and Dylan will be just fine. This unfortunately is another hurdle we are going to get over. Before the eye exam today they decided to up his feedings to 27 cc's every 3 hours. They have stopped his feedings as of 3:00pm today but hopefully by this evening they can take his IV out and resume his feedings. They hope to have him back on CPAP very soon, worse case scenario being not for a couple of days or weeks but hopefully his lungs will be fine and they can take out the vent tube tonight or tomorrow. Brad and I were just down with him before they made us step out, he was responding to our voices and opening his eyes for us. He even cracked a smile or to as my eyes weld up with tears of what he is going thru. We are very optimistic he will be fine and his vision will be okay. He is so strong and the doctors here are even saying that as well. He is truely a miracle and one to hop over these obsticles that get put at him. He is going to have quite the story to tell when he gets older and hopefully he doesn't remember a minute of it, we just want him to remember growing and getting bigger and happy times with his family! Updates to come after surgery~

Dec 1...

Dylan has had a good past couple of days. He is officially 3 pounds and 3 ounces now without any fluid weight. He continues still to have no IV's at all, just mommy's milk with extra calories which is even better! Today he graduated up to an isolet bed. This bed is enclosed and the setting is at room air, when Dylan needs heat it will kick on if he needs it but the bed is set to a certain temp and often the nurses come and check Dylans temp to make sure it corralates. He is still eating 24 cc's every three hours but now he is getting 30 extra calories of fortifier instead of 24. This will help him get chubby!! He is loving the CPAP and we can definetly hear his cry now that is vocal cords are not strained from a tube in his throat. The CPAP is wonderful for Dylan right now. This week Dylan had another eye exam, this one was concerning. Dylan has the early stages of ROP or Retinopothy of Premiturity it is called. This is potentially when the preemie babies blood vessels around the eyes are not matured, they either grow extra blood vessels or like in Dylan's case the blood vessels that are there start to dilate. The Dr's want to control the amount of oxygen that Dylan is getting to his eyes to prevent the retina from detaching which would cause blindeness. So they are watching his oxygenation closely, they are keeping him at 50-60% oxygen and stating 94 = or above. The opthamologist will recheck him next wednesday and if there is any chance that his case has worsened they would do laser surgery to help prevent from the worst scenario. Unfortunately all we can do is wait, hope and pray that he is going to be fine. He has overcame so much, we know he will be okay but the phone call we got is still nervewrecking. So pray for our little miracle, he will come thru this just fine and his big brother in heaven is working so hard to keep Dylan healthy and strong. We love you Dylan, keep fighting and we can't wait to have you home~ And P.S Dylan is dressed in a onsie today, it is precious~