Well, 2 days after threatening us with putting Sam back on the vent... he is still on the SiPAP.  That is one strong, stubborn bugger.  Apparently, he spent the night on just 21% oxygen, which is basically room air.  The number of brady's also went down.  There was one pretty severe cluster mid-morning, but Gaye, who was his nurse yesterday, figured out that the brady's were being caused by a feeding tube not in the right place.  She is a great argument for continuity of care.  Since she had spent the previous day with him, and knew all of his quirks, she just had a gut feeling that the cluster of brady's was being caused by an outside factor- and she was right.  After correcting the tube placement, Sam had just one brady in 4 hours.

The one piece of mixed news we got today was the fact that a heart murmur has started to present itself.  This is most likely caused by PDA, but we will not know for sure until the echo cardiogram tomorrow.  PDA is an extremely common issue in babies born between 23-25 weeks.  Basically, a blood vessel near the heart is open when a baby is in utero to allow more blood to flow to the placenta.  In a full term baby, this blood vessel will close either at birth or within the first few days after birth.  With preemies, this vessel will often stay open.  Sometimes medication can cause it to shut, but sometimes the baby will need surgery to close the PDA.  The danger with an open PDA is too much blood passes through the lungs, which can cause brady's or lung damage and puts a strain on the heart.  Until yesterday, people felt that Sam's PDA was closed.  Now folks are not sure.  So, tomorrow they will do an echo and decide what the next course of treatment should to be.  The good news is if the PDA is open, and they can close it with meds, its possible all these brady's will slow down or stop.

One nice thing that happened on my way to visit Sam today was I ran into my nurse Beth.  This was the first time I had seen her since they wheeled me into the OR.  Both of us welled up with tears and hugged for a long time.  She had not been able to get any information on my condition or Sam's condition since we left her care, so she was really worried.  We talked for a while, and I shared with her the URL to this blog... so if you are reading this Beth... THANK YOU!!!  I also understand that she finally got up to see Sam in the NICU this evening, which is great.  Beth is someone that little man needed to meet.

Sam and I had our daily cuddle- shock I know!  I also evened the poopy diaper score with Peter by changing my first diaper. Again, I got the pleasure of taking Sam out of his isolette (I have been mistakenly calling it an incubator) and putting him back into it. Here are two pics from today's cuddle:

9/27 portrait

Check out the blond hair!

For those of you keeping score... Sam is now up to 1 lb 11 ozs.  One more ounce and he will be back to his birth weight!

The next two days should be fun, Peter is off on a business trip to LA, so I am on my own-ish.  My parents are a huge help, taking over Irene duties since I am still on a driving ban.  I do not know what I would do without their help.  They have been there for us at the drop of a hat, whenever we have needed them.  My father took Irene swimming twice this weekend, my mom was over tonight to help me put Irene to bed, my dad will be here at 7 am tomorrow to help me get her off to school... you get the idea.  They are ... the best as Irene would say.

And now... for your moment of zen: