Bella, Gabe and Josiah

Gabriel opened one eye today! It wasn't opened long, but it was long enough for me to get a picture! I got to give him a bath and hold him while they changed out his isolette. He's now in 60% humidity (he started out at 80%).  He's still doing really well. Keep praying. Clearly it's working!

Gabriel is doing amazing.  When we were scrubbing in today, one of the nurses came to us in shock that they'd pulled Gabriel's pic line.  She said that is unheard of in a kid that only weighs in the 600 gram range.  Sometimes they'll pull them in kids weighing 900 grams, but a 600?  She was nearly speechless.  Our little guy is quite the little fighter! In sad news, Pat had to head back home today.  He'll be back up here in a couple of weeks, but he has to work for the time being.

Someone got his PIC line removed today!  That means that he has no IV line in him at all, which is crazy in a kid his size.  He may have lots of wires and things attached to him, but they're all just sensors, except for his feeding tube and his breathing machine.  Gabe's also up to 690 grams, which is 1lb 7oz.

Little Gabriel continues to do well. He's down a few grams today, but he's still up 5 grams above his birth weight. He's tolerating his feeds so well that they may take out his pic line tonight, which means that all of his nutrition will be coming through breastmilk into his feeding tube. The nurse said that he's really small to not have any iv lines anywhere, but if he doesn't need one, there's no point in having one. It's just an extra potential source of infection. The big news of the day is that he got to snuggle with Daddy. I've gotten to hold him twice now, but this was Pat's first time. It generally takes awhile to get all set up since the nurses have to help get all of the lines moved and reconnected, but then he sleeps on our chest for a good hour or two, which is wonderful! Also, this picture made me laugh because it looks like he's trying to escape from his breathing machine!

Today Pat and I put Bella on a plane back home.  It's been good to have her here for a few days and I'm glad that she's gotten to visit Gabriel when he's tiny.  She loves babies and is sad to have to leave him.  Hopefully the next time she sees him he'll be big enough to hold, rather than just giving him "hand hugs" by putting a hand on his back or around his feet and bottom. Gabriel continues to do well.  They are concerned that his lungs seem to not be expanding all the way when he breathes unless he has the pressure of the breathing machine.  However, his oxygenation levels are still good and he doesn't act like he's having trouble breathing, so they're not sure what's going on with that.  They do have to turn up his oxygen a bit when he's fussing or kicking or getting his diaper changed, but they can often turn it back to just room air when he's calmed down. Speaking of fussing, today he did an actual baby cry.  Obviously it

Nothing very exciting to report, which is always good. They turned off the lights above his incubator, since he doesn't need them anymore. They'll checkhis bilirubin level again in a couple of days. They turned his oxygen level down yesterday since he didn't need it, although they turned it back up to 2 today, since his carbon dioxide level was a bit high. Other than that, he's doing well. The nurses have even been commenting on how feisty he is. When they change his diaper he fusses and cries, which most kids his age don't do. Apparently the feisty ones get out of the nicu faster. Today is Christmas. Obviously this is not how we were planning on spending Christmas, and we really weren't planning on a Christmas baby, but we're all together and we have a tiny new member of the family. Merry Christmas!

Gabriel had a really good day today.  The infection that they thought he had turned out to be a contaminant rather than an actual infection, so they're taking him off of all of the antibiotics  He got a blood transfusion yesterday and handled it so well that they're resuming his feeds.  In addition, his breathing has been stable since being put on the new breathing machine on Monday.  He's back to doing really well.  They also removed his umbilical lines. As great as all of that was, two other exciting things happened today.  The first was that I got to hold him!  He snuggled up on my chest for an hour and a half.  It was a bit awkward trying not to knock out his nasal cannula, but we made it work.  It was wonderful to finally get to hold him! Secondly, Gabriel got to meet his big sister Bella!  She flew up to spend Christmas with us for a couple of days.  She was super excited to get to see him for the first time and see how little he actually is.

Six days ago, Gabriel William was born.  He was only 1lb 5oz and 11.5 in long, but so far he's doing really well.  He was born at 23 weeks 4 days gestation, so his poor little body has quite the journey ahead of him until he'll be ready to come home, but all of the doctors and nurses say that he's doing as well as they can realistically expect a 23 week baby to be doing.  Since it's going to be a long journey, I decided to start this blog, to keep a record of this journey. Gabriel was born Wednesday morning, December 16, at 7:04.  When he was born, he was instantly handed off to the NICU and we had no idea if he was going to survive, since he was showing up so early.  After a half hour the nurse came in and said that they'd gotten him breathing and he was actually doing really well. She even took my phone and took a picture.  He was covered in plastic to protect his skin, but he was perfect. Two hours later, after the medications and epidural had mostly worn off