Hello to all-
I know that I owe emails and phone calls to so many people, but the list is long and the tasks at home are overwhelming us right now, so please forgive me for this mass communication.
Old News:
Christian Pierce was born on Monday, September 13th at 2:25pm via C-secion at 35 weeks.
He weighed 6 lbs. 14 oz.
Immediately after birth he had trouble breathing and was put in the NICU for six days, where he was supplemented with formula and bottle fed. We didn't get to see him until the day after his birth, and we were able to hold him the afternoon of the second day. He had one episode on Tuesday morning where his breathing became very shallow and he needed some assistance to get back on track. This was a major concern and precipitated the need for him to remain in the NICU until Saturday.
Update:
We all came home on Saturday morning. His breathing seems to be stable now.
Christian is nursing well, but also being supplemented with additional fortified breast milk to help him get his birth weight back.
We are running a tough three hour, round the clock schedule of: nursing, supplementing and pumping. This isn't leaving a ton of time for things like sleeping or returning phone calls.
He had his first pediatrician appointment Monday morning and he had gained back five ounces - Very good news. If he keeps up this progress then we can discontinue supplementing after the two week appointment. The tough news from the pediatrician is that we need to keep Christian home for the next few weeks to help his immune system build up. She said we need to wait until at least his regular due date (October 17th) before taking him out into any sort of crowd.
This afternoon we got a call from the pediatrician that Christian had failed part of the state wide newborn screening for some very long disease that I can't pronounce. After going back to the pediatrician we were sent back to the hospital for a retest of the blood work. The doctor just called us about 30 minutes ago to let us know that the new test came back negative. They are running some additional tests, but she said we shouldn't have anything to worry about.
Several people have called and asked about visits. For now we are doing short visits with healthy adults only. We anticipate being able to have friends with children over in the next couple of weeks.
We continue to be thankful for our friends and family. Thank you for your prayers, phone calls, emails, visits and support. This has been such a difficult time for us, but know that the kindness and love from our friends and family will see us through.
Love,
Miriam
