Life in the NICU

This week, we have been settling into some new routines and schedules.  John very reluctantly went back to work on Monday, so it has just been Rowan and I here at the hospital.  We're still staying at the Ronald McDonald House and we are so thankful to have a place to sleep that is only 3 blocks from the hospital.  It is comforting to know that we can get to the hospital in a matter of minutes should we need to (thankfully we haven't had that happen and we hope it stays that way).  John and I get up pretty early, get around and head to the hospital before John has to go back to Wamego for work.  Since I haven't been cleared to drive yet, he has been my chauffeur.  After visiting Rowan for a little while and making sure that Rowan and I are doing ok, John heads to work.  He works all day and then comes back to the hospital to hang out with Rowan for a while.  Bless that man for working so hard for our family when I know he would rather be at the hospital with us!  I pretty much spend all day in Rowan's room with the exception of going to the cafeteria for lunch.  Thank goodness for Wifi and Netflix!  We're 16 days in to our stay here and if all goes as planned, we only have about 100 left.  It's definitely been an adjustment, but time is going by relatively fast.  We hope to gradually get home more and more as Rowan gets bigger and improves.  Right now, we have been coming home on Saturday for the night and then we go to church Sunday morning before coming back to Topeka.

Rowan has been doing pretty good this week.  On Sunday and Monday, he was still requiring quite a bit of oxygen (up to almost 100% at times).  They attributed this partially to the large leak around his ventilator tube and partially to the inflammation in his lungs.  Because of this, they started him on a steroid on Tuesday.  By Tuesday evening, we were already seeing huge improvements in his breathing and his oxygen levels were down in the 50s!  This morning, his labs looked really good and they decided to make a pretty drastic change in his vent settings... Rowan didn't like this very much (he had gotten kind of lazy while the vent settings were high), so he's been requiring a bit more oxygen today.  He is still at a much lower level than he was at the beginning of the week. Otherwise, not much has changed.  The infection in staying away and he will finish up his antibiotics next week.
He continues to grow and officially weighs in at 1 pound 13 ounces.  He now weighs more than he did when he was born; in fact, he apparently only weighed 1 pound 9.2 ounces when he was born.  Somehow, they have it written on his little announcement/nursery card that he was 1 pound 11 ounces but in the computer and on all of the official records he was only 1 pound 9.2 ounces.  Little guy was a little bit smaller than we thought, but he is gradually gaining weight and getting bigger!  We have noticed the last couple of days that his face and neck are a little swollen.  Because of his air leak around his ventilator tube, they have been leaving him in one position for longer periods of time.  This is causing some fluid retention, but the nurses and doctors don't seem too concerned about it.  Hopefully the steroids will continue to do their job and we'll be able to just get off the vent and get rid of the tube altogether.  :-)

We are so thankful and amazed at how well he is doing.  There are SO many things that we could be dealing with right now and we have only had to address and worry about a small fraction of those.  We still have a long road ahead of us, but Rowan is doing so, so good right now considering he was born before 24 weeks.  Prayers work!!

Wide awake on Monday morning!

I love these little eyes!

"Hi, mom!  I'm two weeks old today!"

Rowan turned two weeks old on Tuesday.

Caught the cutest little yawn in this picture!

Mother's Day 2016

So my husband planned a pretty awesome little party for me for Mother's Day.  Our families came to visit and we enjoyed cupcakes and some gifts in the waiting room.  It was great to see everyone and a perfect way to celebrate Mother's Day.  John is not good at not revealing surprises, but he kept this one a secret.  I knew he had something up his sleeve, but I wasn't sure what it was.  He has been the best daddy to Rowan and so supportive of me during the past two weeks.  I couldn't ask for a better husband or a better daddy for Rowan!

Our sweet night nurse helped Rowan make me a card for Mother's Day.  We love Michelle!

Great Grandpa VanSickle (a.k.a Papa Wayne) came to visit Rowan for the first time on Sunday.

Great Grandma Mel visited and brought a book that has been read to my dad, my aunt and uncle, my sisters and I, my cousins and now Rowan.  Gotta love Dr. Seuss.

Rowan has the tiniest and cutest little pacifier that he sometimes like to suck on.

Rowan loves to lay on his tummy!

Enjoying the rare opportunity to stretch out when he isn't all snuggled up.

Daddy changing Rowan's diaper.  (Sorry the pics are all do dark... they keep the lights dim and we don't want to use the flash because it can hurt Rowan's eyes.)

This was part of my Mother's Day gift from John and Rowan.  A topaz stone for Hope and a diamond for Rowan.  I also got a sweet card and letter from Rowan (with some help from his daddy), and several other gifts from John and our families.