Little stinker!

Well everything medically speaking is going good we are waiting for his lungs to mature and for him
to put on alot of weight. Until his lungs are better the little stinker likes to play a game with the
nurses where he holds his breath to make the oxygen sensor alarm to go off so the nurses come
running and he gets attention and the oxygen sensor shows he's excited and getting lots of oxygen
in his blood stream , but as soon as they walk away he makes it drop again. He did this while I was
holding him once but ignoring him by talking to a group of the staff and I asked him if he was happy
because he got some attention and he smirked just like Nate does. After that we all laughed and he
got an even bigger smile on his face and opened his eyes.

Excited,Elated, Extatic,

well I think you get the idea from the title Isaac is doing wonderfully. He had his last dose of antibiotic today and he is getting some fortifier in his milk because he is back down to 1LB 13OZ but he is tolerating his milk very well and they keep going up 1cc every 11 hours. I got to swaddle hold today and he LOVED that. He is definitely a stinker and knows how to get attention and gets a little smirk when he's been naughty. Dr. August is very pleased with his progress and now we are just waiting for him to grow the only trouble he has at the moment is the ventilator and he is too little to be taken off completely so we just have to pray his lungs get stronger and he gains weight.

Awesome Day

We had an awesome day today Aunt Kathy and Uncle Johnny and Uncle O'dell came to see Isaac and I got to hold him yay!(squeals of delight). I held him close to 2 hours and his #'s were wonderful until he stretched and yawned at the same time and choked himself on his breathing tube and then it all went downhill. every alarm you could think of went off his heart rate dropped to the 80s and his oxigenation dropped to the teens they normal do the little bag when it gets to the 40s so when they didn't come I was like um someone needs to check him and then the ventilator said apnea and I was really trying to get someones attention but they were resuscitating another baby and so one nurse comes to check and very calmly says he needs to go back to bed now and you should have seen how quickly every nurse in sight came running even got the respiration guy to stop in the middle of drawing blood on another baby and Isaac was fine as soon as they moved him to the bed it must have really hurt to do all that and get all that attention. Isaac is doing really good but please keep up the prayers we still have a couple more months so he can grow and come home.

A little mix up

Well we had a great day I did not get to hold Isaac today the nurse overstepped her territory and said I could hold him but the Dr. hadn't cleared Isaac for that kind of stimulation especially since he hadn't been on the new respirator for 24 hours and they needed to observe how he was going to handle sooo many changes so quickly so I am pretty sure that if he continues his good behavior then I will get to hold him this week. So for now I am going to relax and enjoy my family being in town for Memorial Day.

An Awesome Week

Wow this week flew by so fast and we have have great news Isaac is doing so good they are giving him 8cc milk every 3 hours
and the ccs go up every 11 hours. His breathing gets better every day and his arterial iv came out Thursday so they oked me to
hold him today and we will be posting pictures asap Kay Macintire is going with us to take tons of pictures. and she does such a
wonderful job.

Wonderful Days

Isaac is having wonderful results on the new antibiotic he is totally off the blood pressure meds and they started him on steroids and he is almost off the ventilator and because they were having problems with the monitor and his PAL(arterial line) they were talking about taking it out because it wasn't doing him any good it is in fact just hindering me from holding him so we are moving in the right direction and I will see what kind of surprises I get when I make it up there this afternoon and again Saturday evening after our crazy day with family and friends.

Never question a parent on their decision! why read on

Nate and I had decided that a spinal tap was unnecessary and would actually cause too much stress on little Isaac and possibly cause some brain bleeds. Well after 3 days of being nagged that there might be spinal meningitis and that would cause more brain damage than a bleed. We caved and well the test results came back negative for any fungus and bacteria so in the end it was unnecessary and a waste of time and money. Nate and I had faith that what they are calling pneumonia wasn't as bad as they thought. Isaac is doing wonderfully and is getting milk again his blood pressure is great and steady, his oxygen level is being weaned off and the vent settings are getting lower every day. Praise God all without steroids and he is proving to be a miracle baby.

Silver Lining in the Clouds

Well after a very obnoxious call from the immunologist right as I arrived at the Crammers to pick up our yummy dinners I decided to call Isaac's nurse and what a surprise he has had a great day full of miracles. They have weaned the oxygen down from the 80s to the 40s. His blood pressure has been steady and Dr. Walden wanted to give him milk this morning but decided to give him one more day to make sure he would be ok and they plan on starting the milk feeds first thing in the morning which will help hinder any infections from continuing to take over and make Isaac sick. We are currently praying that there are no other infections other than the one that showed up last week that they are calling pneumonia because it reacted to a certain antibiotic as pneumonia would I have heard two different nurses and the immunologist call the growth on his tube ecoli so I might need a medical person to explain that one? Anyway He had an awesome day today after the horrible weekend so we are headed in the right direction and maybe they will go ahead with the steroids later this week and it will really make a difference in a good way. Well I'm off to bed and will head up there first thing in the morning (10:30AM) so pray everything will still be good tomorrow.

A long week

Ok latest update Saturday evening Isaac took his vent tube out again and the Dr's started to poke around to see why the infection wasn't getting better or worse. He has also had to have more blood and platelet transfusions than what they are taking out so they are worried about their being another infection like meningitis or ecoli because of all the swelling the tape holding all the iv's and monitors on have caused tiny cuts in his skin and an infection could have gotten in there. So all that to say they have done a urine analysis and another round of blood tests and if anything comes back in the blood test they will want to do a spinal tap. He is getting another brain scan this morning to see if there are any bleeds to try and make since of why he is needing so many transfusions, and the scan can show if there is meningitis also. They weaned him off the blood pressure meds Sunday morning so 72 hours from his last dose they will start his milk feeds again and that is a great thing because the milk will actually prevent more infections from getting started and I am trying to convince them that an iron supplement will greatly help him since he is anemic. The info I found on this will be a link at the bottom. since Isaac hasn't been having regular milk feeds the bile in his tummy is building up so much it is coming out of his feeding tube so he is basically throwing up a very sad thing to see. Because we will be waiting to see results of new treatments and test this will be a very long week for us not to mention the holiday weekend with tons of family coming to see us. Please continue to pray for little Isaac and for our sanity we are a witness in that NICU for God and they have already noticed we are different from the other families. Thank you all for your support and we will keep you updated as results come in. He has gained more weight for those of you who asked he is 1LB and varies between 13 and 15OZ

Effects of fortifiers on the antimicrobial properties of human milk

A good day

Saturday was a good day Isaac was doing good with all his #s blood pressure ok and he wasn't making the alarm on the vent go off. We are concerned about how high he is having to have the oxygen set at the lowest it has gone all week was in the 40's but mainly it has been in the 60's and 70's better than what it has been but still not healthy. We are watching this because the longer he is on oxygen at such a high rate the more risk he is at having eye damage. He is still currently on two blood pressure meds so it doesn't drop too low and he isn't currently getting milk because of those meds so we are looking into giving him steroids just to get him off the vent and the blood pressure meds because he needs me to hold him just as much as I need to hold him so pray that during this next week the steroids do their thing and not harm him because the team of Dr.s are not in agreement on steroid use because there hasn't been any study about long term side effects the only thing they do know is that some babies have smaller heads and lower weight and shorter and some even scored slightly lower on iq tests, but then there are the babies that we have seen in the past month who have gotten them and out grown their twins and gone home sooner and done better on weight gain. so again with the contradictions. We are at the agreement that it is to better his health right now so he has a better chance of surviving and we are going to consent to low doses. He is still on one antibiotic for the bacterial growth on his vent tube in his chest it hasn't been confirmed as pneumonia but it is reacting to the meds as pneumonia would so pray
that his lungs get stronger and this growth goes away. He is doing very good for the circumstances and everyone calls him a
fighter even the nurses that have experienced his mean streak.

Better but not 100%

Isaac was doing much better yesterday they have taken him off two antibiotics and so now he is down to the one for what they think is pneumonia, a very normal thing for preemies because they have the tubes going into their lungs and aggravating stuff then the swelling from the IVs and the transfusions. He was active yesterday and the nurse seems to have found that he prefers to be on his tummy and it will also help keep him from pulling all the monitors off. They are weaning him back off the ventilator he is down from 100% oxygen to between 57 and 65 a very good thing because the higher and longer he is on the oxygen the more chances he will have of eye damage. God has blessed us that there isn't any bleeding in his little brain and that he has done this good so please keep up the prayers, and thank you everyone for all the help you have given us with food and babysitting.

2 steps forward 1 step back!

Well as the night nurse put it He has been a turd! They have had to do a ton of tests today to figure out whats going on in hiss tiny body. They know his platelets are down and have given him a blood transfusion and platelet transfusion today as well as puting him back on antibiotics they have also put him on a med for a yeast infection just in case. He is back on dopamine because his bood pressure was slightly lower than they would have liked it. Isaac has pulled off his heart monitor more times than they can count and he managed to pull his breathing tube out. After getting the tube back in they put him back on the other ventililator because he had had several bad blood gasses.The good news is both of his eyes are open and he is wiggling around like crazy.

A Wonderful Day!

Wow what a diference from yesterday. Isaac is now off all medications and doing really good as far as
his breathing goes. The Dr and nurses are working towards getting him stablized enough this week to
where they don't have to have as many blood gasses and can remove his PAL so I can hold him. His
swelling has gone down dramaticly and he has gained weight. As of Sunday he weighed 1LB 9OZ and he
has gained a little more since then acording to the scale. His lef eye opened today and I know the right
eye isn't far behimd because it looked like it was trying to open. His tiny little hand is looking bigger and
he grips more and more of my fingertip everyday Please keep the prayers coming Isaac needs as many as
he can get What a blessing to see God working in such a miraculous way.

Little Stinker

Well Isaac has been keeping the Dr.s and Nurses busy today and boy was it funny.
He is doing good as far as recovering from all the surgery and procedures that
happened this weekend, but his blood pressure is doing some crazy stuff then
stabilizing just before the medications or new machines get there. and every time a
certain nurse gets near him he makes his oxygenation sensor sound the alarm He
behaved while I was in earshot but as soon as I stepped back for them to do the
x-ray on his chest to make sure everything was still in the right place he would start
the alarms again. Too funny and his room mates were doing the same thing the little
girl who's twin went home earlier this week had gas and refused to eat for anyone
including her mom. The other baby they call baby George was making all sorts of
problems keeping Isaacs favorite nurse busy.

Isaac is very swollen from all the IV.s and blood transfusions and Platelets and just
the fact that his kidneys were being affected by the heart problem up until Friday
his weight today was 1LB 9OZ its good that he gained back to his birth weight in
thw two weeks but we don't know what kind of stress he is under because of the
swelling and his body recovering from surgery so pray that his sono will come back
with no brain bleeds and that he will get back on track asap. Thanks for all the prayers
and support I had a great Mother's Day and am getting rest, now if we could just get
rid of the construction or shorten the drive from 30 minutes it would be a miracle.

moving the catheter

appearently they didn't get the catheter in a good location on friday so to my surprise
when I went to visit Isaac today he had tubes coming out of both hands and the top of
his head (very disturbing). They explained that that was what they had to do till the
surgeon could make it back to reposition the Broviac line. By the time the surgeon called
me and made sure it was ok to proceed I'm irritated and upset and ready to google it to
get some answers because he said he would x-ray when he got done to make sure it was
in the rite place which they did on Friday while I was there. He said that he might have to
go back and reposition it again and at this point I'm ready to tell him forget it thats why
they wanted this catheter in was to prevent multiple iv lines over the next couple of weeks
and to keep the possibility of infection down by not breaking his skin. The opposite of what
he is telling me he is going to do. So on to Google and wow have I learned a ton in the past
hour. Follow the link below

Broviac line placement explained.

Surgery a sucess

[caption id="attachment_24" align="alignleft" width="453" caption="doing great after his first surgery"][/caption] Isaac made it through the PDA was actually pretty big the surgeon said it was as big as his aorta so no wonder he had low blood pressure. God is so great and we are so blessed and apprecite all the prayers. Please continue to pray because we have a long way to go but this surgery will make it a lot better and an easier journey.

First surgery

Isaac has his first surgery scheduled for 8:30 this morning to close off the PDA in his heart.
It is not like a normal heart surgery cracking open the rib cage and all they will go in his
side/back through a small hole and since the picc line didn't work because his veins are just
too fragile they will put a line in his chest through the same place they do the surgery so it
will be as minimally invasive as you can get with a preemie so as not to cause stress and
bleeding in his brain. Well I'm off to fight traffic and sign consent forms. Thanks for all the
prayers.

a couple bad nights

This week has been very hard Tuesday and Wednesday evening especially. Isaac is
having problems keeping his blood pressure at a steady place but last night it dropped
so low they had to give him dopamine. He is also having problems breathing as far as
getting enough oxygen in and expelling all the carbon dioxide out. All of this the Dr
thinks is being caused by his heart what they call a PDA Here are some links to help
everyone understand.
Keep the prayers coming and the biggest problem right now is the PDA
they will be taking the tubes out of his belly button and putting in a picc line
which is basically an iv that will go through a blood vessel all the way up his arm into
his chest so it doesn't get ripped out when he moves around.

Meriter Heath Services

Primer on Preemies


parenting in the NICU

1 Week

Wow I can't believe its been a whole week already so much has happened and our littel Isaac is such a miracle baby living up to his name. Just a few things have happened but they are such big things for him. his Jaundice has almost completely gone away, they have given him meds for his low bood pressure and weaned him off. He barely uses the ventilator basicly it is there so he doesn't wear himself out. He has gained weight and looks a little more chunky too. They did the sono on his brain on Sunday morning and it showed no signs of bleeding which is such an answer to prayer, and I pray it stays that way. They have given him the first round of meds to close the passage in his heart that will prevent his lungs filling with liquid since they are doing so well we really need this to close and stay closed. They are going to take the lines/tubes out of his belly button sometime this week and as soon as that happens we can hold him.

Our church family has been such a huge blessing taking in the other children and ringing us meals we really appreciate it and it is such a HUGE help not having to worry about what we are going to eat when we get back from the hospital or all the other Dr.s appointments and the kids are having so much fun they really don't understand whats going on and they miss us but not to an extreme that they are crying or causing problems they just thing its a really long play date.

Nate and I would like to thank everyone for all the help and can't wait to bring Isaac home to show everyone what they are working so hard for. I am working to get pictures linked here but might have to have a little tech support before they are up but for now there is Facebook.

Isaac's Story

[caption id="attachment_8" align="alignleft" width="604" caption="Isaac Xavier Finch"][/caption]Wow has it been a busy and exciting week.  Since everyone keeps asking how it started I will start with that. Friday April 24th I had contractions all day feeling like Braxton Hicks (practice/fake) so didn't think anything of it but didn't do much at all because I wasn't feeling energetic just tired and achy so I rested till dinner. By the time Nate and I made it to bed they were painful but thought they would stop as soon as I got off my feet and rested. Nope just wasn't going to happen by 2 am I realized these were labor contractions and needed to change position and take some stuff to stop them Nate looked up on the computer what would work best to stop the contractions and found out that Wild Yam would work better than the Blue or Black Cohosh so I told him where the last few capsules were and took them. 10 min later the contractions were almost completely stopped so he called his mother to get some more to make sure they wouldn't start back up.

Saturday morning I called the midwife to let her know what had happened I wasn't worried because I had an appointment with her on Wednesday and as long as they didn't start back up no problem it always takes me a long time to dilate.  She said she wanted to do some tests but her lab was closed till Monday so she sent me to the Dr. that had done the emergency sono earlier in the pregnancy since he had access to the hospital lab and could come in to see me there. 3 hours later Nate and I are off to the hospital for testing. all tests come up negative but surprise I am dilated to 2 and 50% effaced (not good) so they keep me the rest of the day just to watch me to see if there are any contractions showing up on the monitor and NOTHING for 8 hours so I beg to go home and they agreed there was no reason to keep me as long as I stayed on  bed rest till I could go get a sono on Monday just to see if there was something going on inside like placental abruption. Saturday night goes by and all day Sunday and nothing not a muscle twich or anything, but Monday morning I get an appointment for a sono and my wonderful single brother-in-law drives me to the OBGYN's and I am dilated to 5 and the bag of waters is going to burst any second. We rush to the hospital getting turned around somewhere and getting lost in Murphy we finally got turned back around and got to the hospital the same time Nate gets there from Flower Mound and they admit my and proceed to have me lay at an awkward angle where I eventually slide up the bed and hit my head on the headboard. Remember not a single contraction till this point even with all the walking I had to do in getting ready and getting up to the dr. office. The instant I am hooked up ti the IV and laying flat on my back the contractions start 15 min apart and getting closer. They start Magnesium to try and stop the contractions and order up the steroids to strengthen the babies lungs just in case they can't stop the labor. Emilly Minich, and Jenny Hebert were there pretty much all day and even after Nate had to go home to shuffle children around and get them to their designated families for overnight. Thats when it got interesting! I was finally falling asleep and feeling better and then gush(10:15pm) what the nurse didn't tell me was that the blood meant it was imminent and they were not going to get labor to start.  I call Nate and tell him I want him there with me because I needed support and in my heart I knew is would be soon so he scrambles to get his car to the guys he carpools with and then drops his brother off and races up to the hospital to be with me I had called Jennie Hebert to update prayer chain and her and Tiffanie decide to come up and pull an all nighter ( don't know how to thank them enough). Jennie keeps me distracted and comfortable between contractions while Nate sleeps and gets that nice little bit of info out of the nurse while I slept for an hour. So at this point I have no clue what time it is but I wake up because of a really sharp pain and call the nurse because I'm feeling lots of pressure and everyone starts scrambling calling Dr.s and getting the NICU people ready and then they tell me I have to wait for my Dr. to get there even though there was a delivery Dr. standing right next to me so it was probably about 45 min longer then when they tell me I can push everything stops no more contractions just pressure and I can feel his head moving. Eventually I just push without contraction and it seemed like he was at my feet for 5 min but it was only long enough to get him out of the bag and cut the chord. We heard him cry a few times and then they started their little breathing bag and cleaning him off and all the other stuff they do, such a blurr but he was born and alive they took him out and I got to try and rest.

There was some confusion as to name and we appologise we only had 24 hours and we flip flopped a couple of times but his official name is Isaac Xavier Finch born at 5:42 on April 28th weighing 1Lb 4 Oz and 11 1/2" long.

First Post

Welcome to our blog to keep everyone updated.