Three Weeks!

Greyson turned three weeks old today. He has been introduced to breast feeding, but still has a way to go with that. (Come on! How hard can that be!) His hemoglobin level dropped to 8, although since his level of new-but-not-yet-developed red blood cell level (can't remember the name for it) has increased, the concern over a blood transfusion has been reduced. Last week, we discovered that I have the same blood type as Greyson (A Positive) so there is a unit of the good stuff standing by, just in case. :)

Over the last couple of days, he seems to be less of a premie and more of an infant. He spends more time with his eyes open trying to figure out the world. Good luck, I'm still trying to make sense of it.

Here's a video of the kid:


Here's some pix from the last week:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=11dwb14f.cq5cdph3&x=0&y=h1moj7&localeid=en_US

Progress

Greyson was moved to the NICU annex last week, essentially because the NICU was packed (60 kids!). But he's out of his isolet now, marking one of milestones of being able to regulate his own temperature. This makes him a little more accessible. :) Here's a shot of us last Thursday when he was two weeks old.

Over the last week, he's been opening his eyes more and more. He seems to really respond to our voices. Here's a rare shot of his eye open, checking out the world.

I'll get more pictures up soon.

Ups and Downs

Greyson’s biliruben level is down so he’s out of the tanning bed. 

Something we’ve been keeping an eye on is his anemia. One of the ways this is measured is by monitoring his hemoglobin level, which has continued to drop. It’s now at 9. If you followed Trish’s hemoglobin level prior to her C-section you know may remember that 9 is about as low as you want it before you start discussing blood transfusions. The current plan for dealing with the anemia is to give him iron to help him develop his own red blood cells. He won’t receive any iron until the volume of milk he is receiving is enough to offset ill effects of the iron. It’s been a little bit of a race between how much food he can tolerate and how low his hemoglobin level goes. The doctors believe he’s probably ready for iron and should start receiving that today or tomorrow.

The much less desirable ‘plan B’ would be a blood transfusion. This could occur as early as next week if he starts developing more anemia symptoms.

Biliruben and Birthdays

Biliruben is what's leftover after red blood cells have have expired. Greyson's underdeveloped liver can't quite handle all the biliruben. The high levels of biliruben cause jaundice. For some reason, and I haven't quite made this connection, putting him the fancy blue light helps get rid of the extra biliruben.

Good news is that they have removed his problematic IV. This means that he is relying entirely on mamma's milk for nutrition. It also means that he can avoid being stuck with a new IV several times a day.

Today is TRICIA'S BIRTHDAY so that news was a nice birthday present for mom.

Breathing a sigh of relief

Greyson was allowed to remove his nasal cannula today. He is breathing completely on his own for the first time ever. This makes him very happy as you can see.



His biliruben level is back up indicating jaundice, so he's back to the tanning bed and wearing his cool sunglasses again. And nurses are reporting hearing another heart murmur. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that.

Ouch!

Greyson had his bellybutton IV line removed yesterday. It only had a ten day life span before they start worrying about infection. Now, he has to have an IV in his hand. It took them three tries yesterday to find his tiny little veins. Even then, it only lasted a few hours before they had to stick him again. Poor guy.

He'll have to keep the IV going as they ween him off IV nutrition and get him on his mamma's milk. He gets fed every three hours using a line that goes directly into his stomach. Not fair to get fed without tasting it! He's up to 23 ml of milk. Although that's not much, it seems like a lot compared to the 3 - 5 mls he started with.

It's neat to see him recognizing our voices. He has just started opening his eyes when he hears us. That's pretty cool!

Greyson is one week old

It seems like a life time already. I guess it is. Attached is a pic that show's how tiny he is. Or how big my nose is, depends how you look at it.



Also, he's responding well to his light treatment. It's kind of like being under a french fry warmer,... mmmmm, french fry.... He get's to wear these cute little sunglasses. He looks totally cool.



Latest new is that his red blood cell count is low. He started out a little low due to mom's touch C-Section. And the organs that develop those healthy red blood cells are still a little premature. So we're in a wait and see pattern, much like with mom before the delivery. The good news is that he is able to eat now, which means he receives a small amount of mom's milk through a line that goes into his stomach. His esophagus and swallowing muscles aren't quite ready yet. Totally normal for some one as early as him. His meals consist of 3 - 5 mls of milk. Not much, but way up from where we started.

Photos!

Want to see some pictures of Greyson? Click here.

Life is Good

Trish was discharged on Monday night. I spent my first night in a real bed since this all started. (Because it’s all about me.) She is recovering remarkably well. Greyson is breathing well. He has been treated successfully for a heart murmur. And although some set backs are expected, he continues to improve. If he meets all his milestones and goals, we should be able to bring him home in 3 or 4 weeks. Time will tell.

Worth It!

Did you ever have new parents show you some scraggly alien looking thing while asking you if that’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? I might be one of those people. Greyson was far bigger, healthier and cuter than I ever imagined. The first time I held Greyson in my arms, six weeks of hospital rooms, bed pans and blot clots were instantly washed away. The tears could not be stopped. It was such an incredible, precious moment, it’s something I will never forget. He really is cute. My mom, sister and mother-in-law were awesome supporting all three of us. I was close to useless.

Here are some pictures for you.

Trish

Meanwhile, back in the OR, Trish decided to keep things interesting. The placenta had grown/fused itself to the wall of the uterus, a rare condition called placenta accreta that we didn’t know about. During a normal C-section, the placenta is moved easily out of the way. But this time, because of the accreta, it had to be cut apart to get the baby out. This caused a lot of bleeding for some one who already had a hard time keeping her IVs open and had a low red blood cell level. Then, the placenta had to be scraped from the wall of the uterus, causing even more bleeding. She received four units of blood and two units of plasma during the surgery. She was in there for more than two hours.

Greyson Marley

Greyson Marley was born via C-section on 11:58 am on July 9th, ten weeks earlier than expected. He weighed in at 3 lbs, 15 oz. The whole experience for me is a blur. Seems like I was in and out of there in only a few minutes, or maybe it was 10, or 20. I accompanied Greyson the crew that was working on him NICU. Trish and I had agreed on this ahead of time, something about babies being mislabeled, lost, sent home with the wrong parents. After he was deemed stable, I watched him get plugged in… a CPAP to help him breath, a line into stomach to remove pressure, a heart monitor, a respatory monitor, an oxygen sensor, a sensor to measure his skin temperature, a line inserted through his bellybutton as an IV and another one to measure blood pressure an take blood samples. That’s a whole lot of lines and tubes for such a tiny boy.

Go Time

Thursday morning started out quiet. There was even talk of moving us back to Ante Partum. That wouldn’t last. The bleeding started again. I got dressed, put my cell phone in one pocket and my camera in the other. I knew what was about to happen. The door slammed open and an army of nurses rushed in. There was no announcement. There were no protests. Just two very worried soon to be parents. She was whisked out of the room so fast, there was no time to say anything. A nurse hurriedly persuaded me to put scrubs on. I had two phone calls to make. I took a deep breath and did my best to sound calm and relaxed. I wasn’t. I called Trish’s mom to tell her we were going in for the C-section. She didn’t understand, she thought everything was stable. So had I. As I did my best to hide the nervousness in my voice and reassure her, nurses in scrubs were holding the doors to the OR open waving me in. I had to go. The call to my mom was much different. “Mom, we’re going in.” “I’m on my way.”

Not for Faint of Heart

One of the unfortunate things about all the bleeding was passing clots. For some reason, the nurses always seemed to associate the size of the clots with certain fruits. Many clots were ‘cherry-sized’ or ‘grape-sized’. Most clots that week were plum-sized. But Wednesday night, Trish passed a clot that put us in a whole new category, well into the citrus range, we’re talking grapefruit… full-sized ripe grapefruit from Florida. I don’t know why they were still using fruit to describe the clots. I was fairly certain Trish had just expelled her liver. It was so big, they had to bring a scale in to weigh it. 27 grams, very impressive. If you haven’t lost your lunch and are still interested, I’ve got a cool picture of it.

A Rough Week

The week leading up to Greyson’s birth was a tough one for mom. The bleeding had increased from every other day to three in one day, two were very heavy. Our doctor drove in from San Francisco that night to do the C-section, but after a long discussion we decided to wait. The next day, Monday, her red blood cell level had dropped below a level safe for surgery. Trish was on some heavy duty meds, so I’m not sure that quite set in for her, but it sure made me nervous. On Tuesday, the level dropped even further. Until this time, a blood transfusion was something we hoped to avoid. Now it was inevitable. She received blood transfusions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Ante Partum

The bleeding continued. It was intermittent and unpredictable, sometimes worse than other times. We spent most of our time in the Ante Partum unit, a place set up for long term care of expecting mothers. We spent a lot of time working on keeping Trish comfortable… trashy magazines and daytime TV and lots of visits from friends and relatives. If bleeds were bad enough, we would be moved to labor and delivery where we could be monitored more closely and be stuck with more needles. It was particularly tough on me since I had to sleep on an uncomfortable rollaway cot, rather than a pull-out chair/bed thingy.

Hospitalized

Early in the morning on June 4th, Trish woke with bleeding. We took her to Alta Bates. We thought we may end up spending the night there. We were shocked to learn that we might spend several days or even a week in the hospital. We had no idea we would be spending the remainder of her pregnancy there. All of our summer plans were suddenly cancelled.

Placenta Previa

In May, Trish was diagnosed with placenta previa, a condition where the placenta, which normally adheres itself to the wall of the uterus, is covering the cervix, the opening of the uterus. This makes the uterus very susceptible to any sort of trauma. The result of the trauma is that the placenta bleeds. The danger is that mom could lose a lot of blood fast and baby could stop receiving the nutrients and oxygen he relies on from the placenta. Another nasty side effect is that the husband has to do everything the wife asks, so as not to upset her.

Crawchoa's catching up with the tymes!

After refusing to succumb to the blogging craze for far too long, the Crawchoa's have decided to create a blog to keep family and friends up to date with us. Stay tuned for updates!