All Aboard
To begin with I must mention our friends at Baby Be Blessed who have nominated Paxton as their recipient of the month for November. If you click on the title of this post you can head to their website and check out Paxton. I mentioned them in our last post as a wonderful company who made Paxton's "lamby bear" that he has had with him in the CVICU since the day he was born. You will see it in many of his pictures. I am pretty sure that lamby bear will be his lifelong friend. As I have said before, I am blown away by the love and support people we have never even had the pleasure of meeting personally, are showing to our baby boy! He has brought so many people together, taught so many people valuable lessons, and reminded us all how precious life is! Thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts to Baby Be Blessed and so many others for the kindness shown to our family.
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In other Paxton news, he is doing amazing. He had a little rough evening tonight with a bout of "pukies" I have never seen this boy get sick to his stomach and let me tell you it isn't pretty. He hacks and gags and turns insanely blue! Paxton has not been quote "vigorously" gaining weight as he should be with the amount of food he is getting. (We measure it VERY carefully) It has been determined that he has increased pulmonary blood flow which is sending to much blood to his lungs instead of his body. His SAT's (oxygen saturation levels) and respiration's have been sitting pretty high, so an echo cardiogram was done and this was their conclusion. His heart is basically working so hard that he is burning off more calories than he is taking in. So today we started him on a new medication (oral, thank goodness) and increased the calories from 24k/cal to his breast milk to 26k/cal. Well, as soon as the first 26k/cal feed was finished he started gagging and salivating at the mouth. It was scary to see him trying to violently to throw up and of course he turned a bright shade of blue. He did this for several minutes until I got him swaddled back up and calmed down. We are assuming this is due to the increase in fat to his formula. It was just to much for his itty, bitty 7 pound system. He is almost a month old and still weighs 7 1/2 pounds. I am so grateful he had that extra bulk on at birth to compensate for the loss and lack of weight gain. He is still our "little peanut" Other than this, he is doing fantastic. He is taking the feeds orally like a champ and is getting much more coordinated and stronger every day. He is only on one i.v medication, remains off all O2 and is becoming very alert at times.
He also got moved to a big boy bed this weekend!!! He is so tiny it doesn't even look like there is a baby in it at first glance, but he seems very comfortable in it all swaddled up!
I am keeping my fingers crossed that we may be able to take him home for Thanksgiving. They do not give time lines for when these guys will go home as things change daily, so it is never even mentioned...I hope that another 3 1/2 weeks might get us there. All I can do is hope and pray. Won't you join me...
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So... I made it home this weekend for the first time in nearly a month. I have not left Paxton's side since he was born. Let me tell you how freaking amazing it was to be home in my own beautiful, clean house, in my own big, comfy bed, in my super clean shower with my boys to snuggle up to! I have planned on going home since before the birth to spend Halloween with my boys and I was grateful that Paxton was stable enough to allow me to do so. We had so much fun together as a family in our own environment!
The boys had a blast on Halloween in our new neighborhood. There were kids everywhere, hay rides, a band and tons of candy (luckily the boys were to interested in all the people to care about the candy) They were both Thomas The Trains this year. I got the same costumes for them because they fight over everyyytthhinnggg!!!!!! So I get them the same thing at any given chance to avoid the ssscreeeccchhhinng the would ensue if they had something different from one another.
Here is Halloween 2008: (Cars and Nemo)
And here they are this year: (Man, they are the cutest kids ever!!!)
Have I mentioned how cute they are... I mean seriously, look at Austins conductor hat...He's got it on GQ sideways and it so works (ps-ya think he got his Daddy's eyes) Then there's Mason who is the biggest ham like his Daddy, eatin' up the camera!
Mason just enjoyed his freedom to run the streets without me yelling "stay out of the street!" every 3 seconds and Austin definitely got the idea of taking candy and putting it in his Thomas pouch. All in all it was a blast and by the way the boys were constantly asking to "go back to the party" on Sunday, they enjoyed their Halloween this year. I am so happy that I did not miss out on their fun. It made me feel so alive to see them so free and happy!
p.s I just have to send a shout out to our friend Jack. Actually he's Austin and Masons friend, but I just happen to think he is one of the sweetest, kindest kids I know. He faithfully reads our blog for updates on Paxton, wears his bracelet and had Paxton painted on his arm at the fundraiser instead of having his face painted. He is such a good kid and if my boys turn out to be as kind as Jack is, I will be one happy Mom. So, HI JACK, THANKS FOR READING OUR BLOG! WE CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO MEET PAXTON!!!!
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In other Paxton news, he is doing amazing. He had a little rough evening tonight with a bout of "pukies" I have never seen this boy get sick to his stomach and let me tell you it isn't pretty. He hacks and gags and turns insanely blue! Paxton has not been quote "vigorously" gaining weight as he should be with the amount of food he is getting. (We measure it VERY carefully) It has been determined that he has increased pulmonary blood flow which is sending to much blood to his lungs instead of his body. His SAT's (oxygen saturation levels) and respiration's have been sitting pretty high, so an echo cardiogram was done and this was their conclusion. His heart is basically working so hard that he is burning off more calories than he is taking in. So today we started him on a new medication (oral, thank goodness) and increased the calories from 24k/cal to his breast milk to 26k/cal. Well, as soon as the first 26k/cal feed was finished he started gagging and salivating at the mouth. It was scary to see him trying to violently to throw up and of course he turned a bright shade of blue. He did this for several minutes until I got him swaddled back up and calmed down. We are assuming this is due to the increase in fat to his formula. It was just to much for his itty, bitty 7 pound system. He is almost a month old and still weighs 7 1/2 pounds. I am so grateful he had that extra bulk on at birth to compensate for the loss and lack of weight gain. He is still our "little peanut" Other than this, he is doing fantastic. He is taking the feeds orally like a champ and is getting much more coordinated and stronger every day. He is only on one i.v medication, remains off all O2 and is becoming very alert at times.
He also got moved to a big boy bed this weekend!!! He is so tiny it doesn't even look like there is a baby in it at first glance, but he seems very comfortable in it all swaddled up!
I am keeping my fingers crossed that we may be able to take him home for Thanksgiving. They do not give time lines for when these guys will go home as things change daily, so it is never even mentioned...I hope that another 3 1/2 weeks might get us there. All I can do is hope and pray. Won't you join me...
***************************
So... I made it home this weekend for the first time in nearly a month. I have not left Paxton's side since he was born. Let me tell you how freaking amazing it was to be home in my own beautiful, clean house, in my own big, comfy bed, in my super clean shower with my boys to snuggle up to! I have planned on going home since before the birth to spend Halloween with my boys and I was grateful that Paxton was stable enough to allow me to do so. We had so much fun together as a family in our own environment!
The boys had a blast on Halloween in our new neighborhood. There were kids everywhere, hay rides, a band and tons of candy (luckily the boys were to interested in all the people to care about the candy) They were both Thomas The Trains this year. I got the same costumes for them because they fight over everyyytthhinnggg!!!!!! So I get them the same thing at any given chance to avoid the ssscreeeccchhhinng the would ensue if they had something different from one another.
Here is Halloween 2008: (Cars and Nemo)
And here they are this year: (Man, they are the cutest kids ever!!!)
Have I mentioned how cute they are... I mean seriously, look at Austins conductor hat...He's got it on GQ sideways and it so works (ps-ya think he got his Daddy's eyes) Then there's Mason who is the biggest ham like his Daddy, eatin' up the camera!
Mason just enjoyed his freedom to run the streets without me yelling "stay out of the street!" every 3 seconds and Austin definitely got the idea of taking candy and putting it in his Thomas pouch. All in all it was a blast and by the way the boys were constantly asking to "go back to the party" on Sunday, they enjoyed their Halloween this year. I am so happy that I did not miss out on their fun. It made me feel so alive to see them so free and happy!
p.s I just have to send a shout out to our friend Jack. Actually he's Austin and Masons friend, but I just happen to think he is one of the sweetest, kindest kids I know. He faithfully reads our blog for updates on Paxton, wears his bracelet and had Paxton painted on his arm at the fundraiser instead of having his face painted. He is such a good kid and if my boys turn out to be as kind as Jack is, I will be one happy Mom. So, HI JACK, THANKS FOR READING OUR BLOG! WE CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO MEET PAXTON!!!!
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