Life in the NICU - Week One
April 2 - April 8, 2000

We went down to the University of Maryland to get prepared for induction.  Becky was to be induced on tuesday.  We end up spending the night because labor started on its own.

4/4/00

We spent all night last night and all day today in labor.  Arran is breech and he is not dilating Becky's cervix enough so this is a slow process.  Becky is getting pitocin to help strengthen the contractions.  This afternoon she also received an epidermal and she's feeling a little more comfortable now.  We are all getting tired.

Arran was finally born today at 12:37 PM, just after lunch.  He was immediately taken to the NICU and he is currently stable.  Becky is also doing good.

Arran is still at UMMS in their Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Upon first inspection, he has some obvious physical differences. His ears are sloped back and is nose if very short. His chin is slightly relative to his little head. His feet are both clubbed; meaning that they turn in a direction much different that you would expect. The feet can be corrected quite easily with braces later down the road.
There was a great deal of speculation as to whether his heart would work and it seems to have beaten all the odds. There is a small hole between two of the chambers but at this point, they don't think he needs surgery now (or even later) for this condition. His aorta (the big artery that comes out of the heart) does not follow the normal channels but it seems to be working. They do not think he will need surgery for that either.
In the pictures, he has a respirator on. That is because he was a little stressed when he came out (and after 42 hours of labor I am not surprised!) They moved the tube from his mouth to his nose today (3/6) and think he will be able to get rid of it all together soon. In trying to move the tube they noticed that the right nostril was totally blocked somewhere inside and we won't know more about that until a cat scan is done. The ENT (Ears, Nose, and Throat) doctor said that a non-invasive (no cutting open) surgery could be done to open the other nostril but it might not even be needed.

The IV going into his belly-button was taken out today. They don't need to take blood from him as often so having these tubes in more of a risk than they are worth. The ENT was supposed stop in this evening and check on his breathing. They are going to try to take out the tube in his nose. Currently, the blue contraption seen in the pictures runs into a machine that monitors his breathing. He is doing all the work on his own but the machine is just monitoring. They are going to take it out and see if he can go without it. This should be sometime tomorrow (hopefully) His Bilirubin (the stuff that makes babies  yellow sometimes) was a little on the high side this evening so he is under the lights getting a suntan.

Today was somewhat uneventful for Arran. He has basically spent the day under the lights getting his first baby sun tan. His bilirubin count dropped from 14 to 10 today so soon (maybe even tomorrow) he will be going out form under the lights. He did get a few visits from some of his specialists. The ENT visited him today and decided that he would be keeping his CPAP tubes in for a little while longer to make sure that his air passage doesn't close up. He believes that things are going well for his breathing. The Kidney doctor was in to see him today and she ordered some more blood work to be done to determine how well his kidneys are functioning. So far they aren't 100% but they are still working. The Orthopedic Surgeon was also visiting him today to look at his clubbed feet. He believes that they can be corrected by using a series of casts for several months and then he would need to wear special shoes to prevent them form turning back in. They will start casting his feet as soon as his kidneys are a little more stable and they don't have to take blood work quite as frequently. We spoke with his nurse at 10:00 pm and she told us that he did need to have another dose of blood pressure medicine this evening. She said that his pressure was just borderline however it stayed elevated for an extended period of time so they decided to treat it. She also told us that he is now taking a pacifier. This is exciting news because it means that he can suck and breath at the same time and he's one step closer to being able to eat on his own. He had a pretty good day today.