Happy 1-week birthday to you Sam! You celebrated by cutting down your brady’s from 30 a day to under 20. Mom would prefer zero, but I will take a decline in brady’s.
Overall today was eventful for Sam, but not so eventful for us. Here are the highlights:
- One of Sam’s nurses figured out his brady’s are tied to feeding time. She thinks the feeding tube was too big, which was causing lots of air to get into his tummy and was causing massive reflux, which would lead to spit up… which would lead to breathing issues. The nurse practitioner agreed with her assessment and they swapped to tube out. Once they did that, he went almost 5 hours without a brady!
- Sam finally got his PICC line today. The PICC is a longer term central line. With the PICC line, the number of wires and line sticking out of Sam were drastically cut down. This is a milestone for any preemie- and Sam got through it with no problems. I guess he inherited his mommy’s good veins!
- Sam’s evening nurse found another cause of Sam’s brady’s- apparently the little man likes his alone time. When he is over stimulated or has too much interaction he just gets overwhelmed and starts to have brady’s. Because of that, the nurse and I decided the best thing for Sam was to leave him alone, and hope for cuddle time tomorrow.
- Peter FINALLY had some bonding time with Sam! Before all the brady’s started Peter did what is called “compassionate holding”. This is a way for parents to “hold” a preemie while they are in the incubator. Its not the graceful thing to do, but it is a great way to bond with your baby when you are not able to hold him.
Daddy and Sam sharing a compasionate moment 
Daddy through the doors of the incubator - Sam is hard to see but he is in there - We had out first team meeting with the neonatologist, social worker and nurse practitioner. There was not that much new stuff to discuss as we have been so well informed up to this point. We mostly talked about the number of brady’s, and basically, we were told to stay positive and not worry. If he didn’t get them under control soon, they would probably put Sam back on the ventilator- but they are not there yet. It is also very common for preemies to go off the vent and back on it. They kept reminding us that Sam is just 25 weeks and he is doing remarkably well considering. It was a good meeting- and we felt pretty positive coming out of it.
And now, for your moment of zen:
Awesome moment, Papa! More prayers are on their way.