Our dear sweet Oliver had a rough first 2 weeks of life.
Diagnosis: underdeveloped lungs (which was expected being a premature baby) and pneumonia.
He got some extra help through a cannula to increase his O2 levels and he received antibiotics for the pneumonia.
Most of the time we stared at our son struggling to breathe. The other part of the time we watched his stats on this monitor to see how his O2 levels were doing.
Here's a quick clip of Ollie trying to breathe. It always made me sad seeing him struggling to do something that should come so easily.
He was initially on TPN to help him maintain nutrients and keep his weight up. When the doctors said it was okay to feed him some milk, I got to feed him 1ml of my milk through a syringe. But that wasn't enough, he was squawking for more! We gave him a little at a time to decrease the possibility of refeeding syndrome as well as avoid aspiration.
After feeding him with the syringe, the nurse helped me burp him. I was afraid of getting the tubes and wires messed up.
This is the first time Jake got to hold Oliver! They got some good skin-to-skin bonding time.
Why are there some random pink and blue socks on his hands? Oliver kept scratching off the tape on his face and pulling out his cannula. He's a little fighter. So a nurse put them on him so he'd stop pulling out all the tubes.
And here is my Mom's first time holding him. He was tube free :)
Eventually, Oliver was breathing well enough that he was allowed to leave the nursery and sleep in the same room as me! I was so excited. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him.
Calvin LOVED being near baby Ollie. He was excited to hold him (only for about 5 seconds).
Thanks to Marissa's visit, she was able to care for Calvin at home while Jake and I stayed in the hospital to be near baby Oliver. (Thanks Marissa!) That was a huge help. Every day, she would come by the hospital so Calvin could see us and she could have some good bonding time with her newest nephew.
After 14 days of being in a hospital, Oliver and I were finally discharged. We were so grateful for the special care that Oliver had to make sure he was 100% okay to go home, but man -- we were ready to get out of there.
Oliver was still working on learning how to breastfeed, so his big brother got to help feed him with a bottle. Calvin loves being a big helper.
I love being home with my boys. Life is different with 2 kids in our lives, but Jake and I are excited to embark on this adventure as parents together.
