Friday, July 17, 2009

Wacky Wednesdays (52 days)

My offhand comment about "suck, swallow, breathe" being a challenge turned out to be prophetic. They're still delivering his milk through a tube, but like many preemies, Bryce suffers from reflux: sometimes, his body decides to send the milk in the wrong direction (back up into his mouth)! When this happens, Bryce gets confused, and occasionally forgets to keep breathing. On Wednesday, while Christie was holding him, he had a couple of particularly bad spells: his oxygen sats and heart rate plunged, and he started to turn blue. Fortunately, the nurses were able to correct the problem in a matter of seconds by tickling his feet and (very gently) shaking him, which reminds him to breathe, but poor Christie was scared out of her wits. As I said earlier, this is a very common problem in preemies, and the doctors have prevented any serious relapses (so far) by stretching his feedings over a longer time, but we once again find ourselves anxiously waiting for Bryce to outgrow the status quo.

Thankfully, he has been happy to comply with our wishes. Bryce's growth has been slow, but he's up to 2 lbs., 13 oz. this morning, and he looks a little more like a full-term baby with each passing day. His hair is getting thicker, and has a tendency to puff up hilariously after his weekly baths. Bryce is getting thicker, too: those protruding ribs are a thing of the past, and a nurse joked that he'll have a healthy double chin in no time. We'll cherish every added ounce. :) We couldn't choose just one or two, so I've thrown up a panoply of pictures for your weekend amusement.









UPDATE: Christie and I were looking back at old pictures, and even we were stunned to see how far we've come since Wednesday, May 27th. For comparison, here's a pic of Bryce at one day old.

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