Sunbathing already

This morning Aidric's bilirubin was 7.6. That's not extremely high, but it's higher than they want it, so they have started phototherapy. That means he needs to be under the heat lamp around the clock; we can only take him out to feed him for 15-20 minutes at a time. You can see how cool he looks sunbathing with his gangsta shades on though =)

He is eating like a champ! Before today, they were only giving him 10 ccs at each feeding in addition to the IV fluids. Today, they discontinued his IV and are offering him as much milk as he wants. He drank a whole ounce the first time! As the doctor said, "We need to see if he is going to act like a preemie or show us he's a tough big boy". Well, so far he is looking to prove himself =)

I am officially being discharged, but get to stay in the room for at least another night. I'm so relieved, I get teary just thinking about going home and leaving my little boy here! Tomorrow Gretchen is coming to visit (her visit was already planned, but I think most of our plans for the visit will have to change!). Daddy went out and bought Aidric some clothes today, since we didn't have anything in a preemie size!

All in all, we feel so thankful for his health. If his bilirubin goes down and he continues to show off his eating skills, we'll be looking at an earlier discharge!

One day old, continued....

Aidric is doing GREAT! All of the nurses and doctors keep telling us that he couldn't be doing better. His blood sugars are stable and they going to replace the glucose solution with TPN..a liquid that will go in his IV that includes all the nutrients he needs right now.

He tries to breastfeed and latches on, but isn't always the most motivated. He has taken two tiny bottles of expressed milk though and he is a great eater when it comes to that! That's an encouraging sign; we just hope he keeps it up. Apparently, it can be common in preemies for that skill to show up early and then disappear.

It turns out our blood types are incompatible and that puts him at risk for jaundice. They are going to start checking his bilirubin level today and will do so twice a day to keep an eye on that. If it looks high, they'll do phototherapy, but that will be long before the levels are dangerous to him.

That's all for today. I think I will be discharged tomorrow morning/afternoon. It is going to be so sad to leave the hospital without our little baby. We only live five minutes away though, so there will be constant visits.

Our little boy is 1 day old

Family and Friends- I'm glad you are visiting our website! We love taking pictures of Aidric and sharing them with you, along with updates on his progress. We hope that many of you get to meet him soon- we are such proud parents!

LABOR AND DELIVERY
Since this is the first entry, I'll backtrack a litle. At my 30 week doctor appointment, Dr. Grogono told me I was 50-75% effaced, which is pretty unusual, especially for a first time mom! She was keeping a close eye one me, but I didn't progress at 32 weeks. Thsi past Wednesday, at 34 weeks, she found I was still 75% effaced but also a centimeter dilated. Chris and I started talking about when his last business trips should be. (He was in San Diego on Wednesday and Dallas for a meeting on Thursday.)

On Thursday morning at 3:00, I woke up and felt my water break. Wow, I was shocked! I immediately started calling Chris and it took about 5 calls to get him to answer his cell phone. He was in such a daze, his first response was that he had a really important meeting at 10:00, so wouldn't it just be ok if he came home after that? =) I knew he was just in shock and denial too, so I told him I'd call the doctor and then call him back.

The doctor asked me to come straight in....I packed a bag, did a little laundry and took a shower first though! I got to the hospital at 4:30 and the IV was started around 5:15. I was still pretty happy and comfortable at this point. Around 6:30 the contractions were much stronger and often coming within a minute of each other. At that point, I was 4 cm dilated. I asked for an epidural and it was about 7:40 by the time it was in. What a long hour!! But, once the epidural was working, I loved labor =)

Chris's plane landed and I told him he could run home and grab some things. The nurse heard me say that and looked at my contraction print out.....she said she wanted to check me and once she did, learned I was 100% effaced and 10 centimeters dilated! We were ready to push! This was a little after 8:00. I called Chris, but he had been moving very quickly and was already in the parking lot. He walked into the room, was handed some scrubs and we took off for the OR. Because the baby would be born 6 weeks prematurely, we had a whole team of neonatal intensive care specialists in the delivery room with us to take immediate care of him.

I pushed for about 30 minutes. (Chris says quick and easy....I say let's watch the use of the word "easy" =)

Aidric John Zohlen was born at 9:38 AM on May 31st. They took him to evaluate him, but he got 9s on his apgars so they let me hold him for about 10 minutes or so while they worked on fixing me up. They took him to the transitional care unit to hook him up to monitors, but he didn't need any oxygen. He came out crying, was breathing fine and color was great!


MORE ABOUT AIDRIC

First, his name.....early on Chris fell in love with the nickname "AJ". The challenge for me was finding the perfect A name. The "J" was easy....my dad, Grandpa Sytsma and Chris's Grandpa Zohlen are all named John. After months of searching, I found Aidric ina baby book and just loved it. Aidric is actually the name fo a saint, which we really like. Here's a little info I found on the web:

St. Aidric
Feastday: January 7
856

Bishop and court diplomat, raised at Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany, the royal residence of Charlemagne. Aidric, or Aldericus, grew up serving Charlemagne and his son and successor, Louis. At twenty-one, Aidric left the honors of the court to study for the priesthood at Metz, France. After his ordination, he was recalled to the court by Louis. Nine years later he was made the bishop of Le Mans, where he became known for his sanctity and for his efforts on behalf of his people. When Louis died, Aidric supported Charles the Bald, one of Louis' sons fighting for the throne, and for this reason was forced out of Le Mans, only to be reinstalled by Pope Gregory IV. Aidric served as a legate to the court of King Pepin of Aquitaine, France, where he convinced that monarch to restore vast amounts of Church property stolen by the royal family. Aidric also took part in the councils of Paris and Tours. He was paralyzed for the last two years of his life.

Back to our little Aidric though! He weighs 5 lbs. 3.3 ounces, which makes him one of the bigger babies up in the NICU. They are really just keeping an eye on him. He has leads to monitor his heart rate and a pulse ox for his oxygen levels. They are down to doing a heel stick every 12 hours to monitor his blood sugar (which has looked great except for one low reading yesterday).

His goals for going home are:
-no heart rate drops (so far so good!)
-no oxygen needs (he hasn't needed any yet and looks great)
-stable blood sugar (it's almost there but he'll need to keep it stable even as they wean him from the glucose solution)
-he has to learn to suck from a nipple. Apparently this isn't a natural reflex or ability at his gestational age. He's doing great so far though- the nurses are impressed and say he is doing it better than could be expected.

That's all for now. Here are is a link to a shutterfly album for more pictures. I know I am biased, but he just gets cuter everytime I see him!

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