Monthly Archives: October 2012

Nathan now off Respirator!

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The second attempt at taking Nathan off his respirator has been so far much more successful than the first try.  The first attempt he was only off for 10 minutes and had to be put back on.  This time, he has been off for over a half hour now, and is doing well.  The nurses said to not be alarmed if he does have to go back on again but so far they’re much more optimistic than the last attempt.

Day 3 Updates

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Today is another challenging day for Kaleb.  His blood pH levels were low yesterday so they gave him some sodium bicarbonate to help neutralize the acidity in his blood stream.  He also has some intra-cranial bleeding which is measured on a severity of 0-4, 4 being the most severe level of bleeding.  One side of his brain was measured at a 3, the other a 4, so Kaleb is still in an extremely critical state.  At 12:58pm today, they took another brain ultrasound, so we should hear something from the doctor soon on this.  They are also mixing in nitric oxide with his oxygen to help try and dilate his capillaries and pulmonary system.  We should have some results within the next couple hours from the ultrasound.

They also just gave Nathan some caffeine to prepare him for a second attempt at taking him off his ventilator.

Last night we were able to get a room at the Ronald McDonald house just down the hall and get a few hours of rest in.  We’re sitting beside with both babies so we will try to post additional updates as we have them.

The Adventure Begins…

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Nathan Robert and Kaleb Glenn were born almost 3 months early on 10/25/2012.  Nathan weighed in at 1lb 5 oz and Kaleb at an even more scary 13.9 oz.   Shortly after being delivered by emergency c-section due to something called a placental abruption, they were transported from St. Luke’s to Texas Children’s Hospital NICU by the “Kangaroo Crew” from Texas Children’s Hospital.  Mommy is still at St. Lukes and should be released on 10/27.  Nathan and Kaleb are currently both on ventilators and have a long and challenging road ahead.  Today they attempted to take Nathan off the ventilator to see if he could breathe on his own, but ended up having to put the ventilator back in.  The NICU doctor said that this first week is extremely critical, and they are the most critical babies they are caring for right now.  For such a big hospital, that’s a scary concept to fathom.  They want to get the babies off the ventilators as soon as possible, as it is also hard on their lungs.  The babies are so small, that even the small temperature sticky pads are too big to stay stuck to their tiny cheeks.

We started this blog to share photos, updates, and videos with friends and family who can’t be with us during these trying times.

We are registered at Amazon, Babys-R-Us, and Target.  The links to these registries are on the right side of this page, listed under “Our Links”.  We both are really hoping to take the babies home within 3 months, but the doctors are saying it could easily be six :(.

Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and prayers!