MicroPreemieMom

Jameson Alan update blog

[jamesonalan]

1 month in the nicu.

30 days since Jameson was born and as great everything sounds or seems. It has been anything but great. When they say the NICU is a rollercoaster, they mine the tallest ones with all the tallest hills and dips. Every hour is something new in the nicu. You think if you make it to the next week youre doing great, but the thing is anything in the nicu can change in less than a minute. Youll be at the top of your peak where everything seems to be the greatest and before you can even take a breath you are flying down a dip into some of your worst hours.These babies are fighters, they have all odds against them yet they deny more than most people will in their entire life. Jameson has had his lows and on days he hasn't felt the best he has fought his hardest. Jameson has had a rough couple of days in his first month. At times I cant believe how far we've come and then others im sad about all we've had to do to such a small boy all in the short amount of time.

[jamesonalan]

Breastfeeding/Pumping

It was always something I never really wanted to do. Then I got pregnant and realised not only how expensive formula is but also how important breast milk was. Once I gave birth I remember crying and being so upset because I thought since he came early my milk supply wouldn’t. I was of course wrong and very thankful that it did come. But what people don't tell you when they push breastfeeding on you is how exhausting it truly is, especially exclusively pumping. To maintain my supply I must pump every 2-3 hours all day and night long. So if you thought just because my baby was in the NICU and I didnt have to wake up in the middle of the night with a baby, you thought ALL wrong. So maybe I don’t have a crying baby, but now I have to force myself away for no real reason other than to pump, whether I have a milk supply or not. Its beyond tiring to be attached to a pump every 2 hours no matter where you are. and to be honest pumping to me seems 10 times harder than just having my baby here because think about it, the babies here i can feed him or when im out in public have a breast milk bottle on hand. NOPE that's not the case here I have ti pump every 2-3 hours NO matter where I am or what I am doing, which has made going back to work extremely difficult. Not to mention here I am this whole time thinking I had a good supply. Well I thought wrong, I was recently told that I had a borderline supply which basically means i'm not producing as much as a baby would eat through the day and lets add on top of that my supply has been shrinking more each and everyday no matter how many times i pump or for how long. So that brings us to trying everything! I've tried adding more pump times, waking up and eating different oatmeals, I have bought lactation cookies, taken more days off work, drank more water, cut out caffeine. Nothing seems to be helping at all, and that's where it become real tiring and upsetting because you just don't feel like you're doing enough .😢

[jamesonalan]

Three Weeks Old.

This isnt really much of an update as it is just a post to celebrate my babies “weekly birthdays”. 21 days ago I gave birth to a beautiful little boy one that I was so scared to love or get attached to with the thought of something could go wrong at any moment. But at the end of the day you dont think about those things when you lay your eyes on them. All I can think about looking at him is how did i create such a handsome and heart tugging baby boy. He is feisty, he is fierce and he is strong. Jameson wasnt exactly planned at his time in his life but there is nothing in the world that would ever make me change his timing. God knew exactly what I needed when he sent me Jameson. I know corny as that is but already in just a short about of time. Jameson has strengthened me, he has taught me love and to accept things that I can not change. He has taught me how to be strong and how to put my trust and faith back into the world. Its crazy that such a small human can teach you such big life lessons. I wouldnt change it for the world. Happy birthday baby boy, i love you more than there are stars in the skies.

[jamesonalan]

Transferred and saved!

My baby boy is is MUCH better hands here at children’s!

We are finally off the laxatives and he has had healthy poops all day ( never thought I’d be throwing a poop party!)

But pooping is what’s steered us away from surgery the most. See I didn’t want to post about it until we seen a clearer path but Jameson was transferred from MVH because they didn’t see a gas pattern in his lower GI (huge sign of NEC which is one of the number one killers in preemie babies)

But here his upper GI check came back with positive results and doctors wanted to try some experiments which worked! We’ve had healthy poops for the past 3 days and tomorrow we’re doing another x-day to see if all our contrast has moved out and that we are continuing to move in the right direction 💜

Today baby boy has starting his feedings again after almost a week of no eating mommas milk we’re finally back on a good track

[jamesonalan]

PooP!

You never once think in a 1000 years that you’d be excited for someones poop. But as a mother with a preemie that is on a verge of NEC that's exactly what you do. My little man hadn’t had a bowel movement in 3 days. X-rays were coming back “concerning” and no body was giving me exact reasons of  what was going on and what was the concerns were. As the week went on thats when I started learning that my baby was at risk for NEC which is an extremely dangerous thing in new born babies. Yesterday they started his first rounds of laxatives and we got a small poop, but today they were still concerned because they didn't believe the contrast was coming out and that there was still a blockage. Today's goal was another poop with hopefully some contrast in it. By the night shifts turn we changed his diaper and it was a HUGE poop! Tomorrow morning is another x-ray and were hoping that the two doses of laxatives have helped him push the rest out .

[jamesonalan]

First week of life with my baby boy 💙

[jamesonalan]

New Hospital Update;

I cant lie and say that I wasn't upset and frustrated with hearing the news that we would be leaving our birth hospital. We had been there 14 days plus the days of trying to stop labor and I had become close with most of his night nurses. We learned the ends and outs of the hospital and became familiar with a routine. BUT, now that we are here I cant tell you how happy and thankful I am for this change. From the nurses to his room to the environment he is surrounded in. Everything is absolutely refreshing. We have been upgraded to a much bigger room with a bed, chair, tv and walking space in it. We went from a room with one bench big enough to fit two people and a chair to pump in it, barely any walking space and enough to hold 2 people and a nurse. Here we feel free we feel almost at home. They acknowledge that I am breastfeeding and offer 3 free meals a day. All of this things make it more comfortable for me to be here. The second day hes been here I am sat with him for 5 hours. I could hang out all day and not feel over whelmed and just want to leave. Going onto the medical point of view, were now at a children's hospital and its more relieving to know that they focus on children and have more compassion for them. Over all I am very happy about the move! 

[jamesonalan]

2 weeks old 🥰

[jamesonalan]

Week Two in the Nicu

Week two started our rollercoaster back up. Jameson was climbing the hill and came back harder than ever. He pushed the odds of being sick and showed himself to be here and be strong. We did move to a high ventilator which was something none of us were use to. It pushed the limits of what we were comfortable with but it seemed to help him breathe better than ever. I learned what oxygen stats were and where we thought sweet spots were for his oxygen percentages. The more I learned about the vent the more it made me nervous. Yes they said it was the best one for him and his developing lungs but most people I talked to, talked about how damaging it was for them in the long run. At that moment though Jameson was stable, he was defying the odds that last Friday had brought to him. Lets fast forward through all the ups and downs through the week and get to Friday, another “weekly birthday” for him. Now as we seen last week, Jameson is NOT a fan of his birthdays and likes to scare the crap out of his mother every Friday. (actually Fridays are starting to be my least favorite day of the week lol ) It had been two days of “good news” and hearing that my baby had looked better and better each day. So I decied Hey lets take a vistor again since he’s been doing well. So my mom takes me up there and as I thought it would be just a normal everyday visit, I mean I had already been there this morning and everything was fine. Well things took a dramatic change when my mom and I stepped in the doctors all came in with concerned looks in their eyes and wanted us to have a talk. At this point i'm more worried than I ever have been. I am being told that my son was going to be transported to Childrens Medical center because some stomach xrays kept continuing to come back abnormal. Now we had already received this news the day prior and was told that he didn’t look like he would need surgery. Now as of this conversation Im being told that they wanted to move him to children's as a just in case and to have the surgeon on deck. My mind is racing. But as you're told in the ER everyday, things change in the blink of an eye every minute and every second of the day could be a new thing with him and we were getting a first hand of it. So I head home to try and breathe and wrap my head around what was going on. An hour and a half goes by and I now recieve a phone call from childrens that they received him and did another xray and that they were concerned that they would have to be rushing him into emergency surgery, My heads racing at this point and im terrified. But another hour later as im waiting for a call to come and see him I get another phone call that the second type of xray they did showed that surgery was not needed right now ! Now that doesn't mean that he is completely out of the woods for surgery but right now we have time to focus on the postive and check into other things. One of our biggest concerns right now are that we are showing slight issues with his kidneys. He tends to not want to pee at times and have low outtake, but were taking everyday with a grain of salt and focusing on the positives and not the negatives.

[jamesonalan]

Week one in the Nicu.

Week one seemed to be our “honey moon” phase as so many woman called it. Everything good that could be told to us seemed to be happening. “he was a healthy weight for his gestation” “hes breathing alot on his own without any ventilators” ‘he is a very active baby” but week one ended with some pretty hard setbacks and first time bad news given. We were told by the end of week one that Jameson wasn’t telling himself how to breathe, that his lungs werent catching up with the amount of oxygen he needed. By Friday it was his “1 week birthday” as I called it and the worst day that he’s had. I got a phone call with any and every bad news i could think of at the time. Jameson was “very sick” as they called it. He was pale, inactive, not responding to anyting they were trying. At this point I didnt think Id have my son when I went in for my morning visit. Before I could even make it to the hospital I was receiving another call letting me know that Jameson needed a blood transfusion, and a few hours later another one. The alot of his counts were coming back low and an infection seemed to sprout somewhere but no body could seem to figure it out. I elected for the blood transfusions as I was told by other moms those had saved their kids lives. I think the scariest part at this point was not know what to say yes and no too. You are giving so many options to refuse or accept a medical procedure but who am I to know what could potentially save his life ?? I believe that has been the hardest part about this, making decisions that you never knew were even options for a baby.

[jamesonalan]

Intro

I wanted to start this blog, kind of as a safe place. A place where I can pour my heart out on the hard days and rejoice in the happiness on my little ones good days. If you're reading this we want to thank you for taking the time for following our story and hopefully this can help keep everyone updated without having me to explain something a thousand times. The love and support we have received for this bundle of joy are more than I could have ever asked for or expected. I just at times do not have the heart to tell 100 different people the same stories especially on the rough days.

If you are unaware of what a micro preemie/ nicu are let me explain.

A micro preemie is a baby born 28 weeks of gestation or under, or weighing 1-2ls or less (different blogs ive seen has went by different weights)

So let me explain to you who we are .

My name is Courtney and my son is Jameson Alan,

OUR STORY

His due date was February 06 2020, but if you know anything about Jameson he is a feisty one that takes what he wants. So on October  30th 2019 we started having contractions at work. 26 weeks is pretty standard to start feeling what people know as Braxton hicks (false contractions) . So going through my work shift I thought nothing of this . Until leaving work they became two minutes apart and were very consistent. (always time your contractions ladies, braxton hicks will NEVER be consistent and will never be that close together take it from me ) so Oct 31. (happy halloween) we decided that it was best to make it to an emergency room. As soon as we got there we were immediately rushed to labor and delivery where I find out at this point we are 2 cm dilated and have what they call a “bulging bag”(aka my water is trying to break at this point so they think) The hospital I was at then gave me steroid shots to help his lungs develop fast and different medicines to try and stop preterm labor. At this point I am given the news that we would be transported into a new hospital that supports babies that could be born that young. Once we get to the new hospital I am restricted to bed rest and given the news they have stopped my labor and want to keep me hospitalized until full term  (14 weeks+ at this time) . We were in for a long night and long road ahead of us.

NOVEMBER FIRST;

The next morning i'm rushed for an ultrasound where I am then given more bad news . I did not have a bulging bag, I had actually been leaking amniotic fluid the entire time and at this point had nothing left. Again doctors told me we could still potentially stop labor and that we would continue to monitor it in the hospital over the next 14 weeks. But remember I told you Jameson is feisty and he takes what he wants. So fast forward through the day of terrrible contractions. 7pm rolls around and I feel like its the end of the world. Contractions at this point are every 2 mins again and these are ten times worse than the night before, these are getting stronger. I am checked and informed in 30 mins i had went from a 2 to 5 cam and now doctors are talking about changing rooms. Next thing I know I am being rushed into an operating room and my nurses are scrambling to find a doctor that could help  My nurse leaves to get the epidural and by the time she came back the baby was here. Mr jameson took 10 mins and 4 pushes to enter this world.

Novemeber 1st 2019

26weeks gestation.

7:22pm

2lb 3oz 15in long.

To be continued...