Day 1 - John comes home :)

Sorry for the delay in my post. We brought John home yesterday at 12 noon. Can I tell you how nice it was to come home and for the most part stay home, especially in the evening when we would usually run to the 8pm feeding, spend an hour with him, go pick up Cate then get her home and in bed at a late hour. 2 wks of that was enough. Catie was so excited to have him home. She was constantly wanting to hold him. She loved getting his diapers and wipes when we needed them and then throwing the diapers in the "barbage". Bed time was interesting. Cate was in bed by her usual time 730pm. She fell asleep. Well, John has decided that 8-11 will be his fussy time. It was in the hospital, why not at home. Cate ended up waking up, crying because he was crying. So everyone was up until 1030/11pm. John ate until 1045, rocked with Barrie for 15 minutes and was out. Catie was up singing in her bed until after 11 sometime.
Once everyone was asleep, it was great. I set my alarm for 3, thinking Jon would wake up at 2 for his normal hospital feeding. Nope. I had to wake him up at 3. He ate and fell back to sleep. I set my alarm for 7 thinking ok, he will wake me up at 6 for his next 3 hour feeding. The alarm went off, and he was still asleep. I fell back to sleep for an hour and heard him squirming in the bassenette. Crazy. I was able to get a 4 hour and 5 hour block of sleep. It was great. Not sure how long this will last but, it was nice. Anyway, well, I must get back to my little peanuts. I will try to keep a daily update, but we shall see now that John is home and Cate is starting to get more clingy. Thanks again everyone for all your prayers and thoughts. I know for a fact that they were all heard and answered!!

AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just talked to the NICU doctor. She said that Johnny can come home tomorrow!!!! She said he has been doing awesome off his oxygen and eating super well. Oh my goodness.... I feel like screaming I am so excited!!! I know the good night sleeps are going to be shortened to night sleeps but who cares. We will be able to get Catie back on her normal schedule without interruptions. I won't be such a hysterical freak with needing to be at the hospital to see him, and feeling like I am neglecting my Catie and Ben. Ok, so I need to calm my excitement down until tomorrow morning. Please keep John in your prayers tonight so he can have an awesome night and come home tomorrow!! Thanks so much for all your support and prayers so far. I know that Heavenly Father has heard all of them so far and has answered all of them!!

We have a count down going on

We are almost there!!!! I hope this post doesn't jinx anything. Johnny has been off oxygen for 23 hours now. We have 25 more to go before we take him home. Yeaaaaa!! He is still eating like a champ and maintaining his temperature which he has been doing all along. We are so proud of his hard work and determination. He is just like his big sister in that aspect. Prayers and fingers crossed for the next 25 hours.

Are we up or are we down?

Ok bummer of a night. So I went to feed Johnny this evening. I asked his nurse how he was doing with the oxygen. She told me that he was on 110 cc's. I asked her what happened because he was on 40 cc's this am. She kept talking in circles but never really saying anything except that that amount was the equivalent to what he was on in the level 2 NICU. I had asked her why he wasnt just put on that in the beginning. She couldnt answer me, just kept saying that was what he was on before. I am a bit pissed. Since he has been moved from level 2 to level 1 the nursing staff has seemed to become dumber and when asked questions just repeat themselves and dont answer the question. I will have to wait till the morning to talk to the neonatologist to actually have my questions answered.

Wahooooo!! Go Johnny Go Go Go!!

We got awesome new this morning. First we get a phone call at 7am from the NICU. They said they moved Johnny out of the level 2&3 NICU care into the level 1 NICU care. So awesome. Here is where little ones still need a little bit of help, but are on their way to coming home. They also dropped his oxygen amount down. It went from 200cc's from what Ben explained to me down to 40cc's - so just a little puff of air in essence. When he was in the Level 2 and 3 they had him on a mixed flow where they were constantly pumping oxygen into him to keep his lungs expanded. Now he is off that, on straight oxygen and doing great. We have been able to start breast feeding him again now that he is off the vent and doing great. He is eating like a champ. He has surpassed his birth weight. He originally lost about 5 oz- not bad for being sick. As of last night when they weighed him he is now 7# 8oz (7# 7oz at birth).
It was so nice to get good news this morning. Hopefully the crying roller coaster that I havent been able to get off of since coming home will not start up today. I have had a nap already - and going to start another one here shortly while Catie is down for one. Thank you all so much for your prayers and thoughts. They are definitely being listened to!!! You all mean so much to us!!

Good Early morning!!! Baby Johnny is jumping leaps and bounds. He had the arterial line taken out of his belly button about 1130am on Saturday. His blood gases have been good. He has been holding his oxygen levels. At 1130 Saturday night he had his first feeding of 10cc's. He sucked down that down in no time. After that the plan was to comfort feed every 3 hours unless he wanted more. Well, by 1am he wanted more an had 10 cc's. I can down at 2am to bring him more breast milk and he was up wanting more. He ate 20 cc's this time. His NICU nurse said he was doing awesome. If his next feeding goes just as well, then they will start to ween him off the IV food. I am so happy!!!! Hopefully, with things going the way they are, he will come home sometime this week.

Bye Bye Vent!!!

Baby Johnny is off the ventilator!!!!! I walked in to see him and was wondering i f they had moved him because the vent was not there. I get over to his little isolet and saw he was squimming around and fussing. His oxygen levels have been great. Liezle, his nurse for the second night in a row (she is super awesome) had let me gentilly hold his while she watched to make sure the arterial line in his belly button did not get pulled. Oh I so loved that !!! He smelled so good. I just wanted to snuggle him up. Liezle then layed Johnny on his belly. i hung out a bit more rubbing his little back and patting his tiny bum. I am so excited that we are another day closer to bringing him home

Weening

I like the word weening. Saw little Johnny this morning. He is so dang cute as ever. They continued to decrease the oxygen on the vent. His blood gas levels have been awesome per his nurse. By lunch time, they started turning the settings of the vent down - so exciting!!! His fentynol drip which has kept him lightly sedated was also cut in half making the weening process even better :) He will have a chest x-ray at 2pm to look and see if his lungs still look wet, or if there is a tiny bit of pneumonia. He has been on antibiotics fighting a small infection. He looks worlds better than he did yesterday or even Wednesday night. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. They are working!!!

And now a vent

Little John is now on a ventilator. He was struggling too hard to breathe on his own and pump the fluid out of his lungs. They sedated him and intubated him around 1pm. He has held his own and they actually weened down the oxygen a little since they put him on. He is starting to heal and get stronger. His nurse said that he responded well once put on the vent and more so when he had the drug serfactin (I know I butchered the spelling of that name.) So for right now, it is a wait and see, draw blood gases throughout the night and hopefully start to ween him off the vent if things are continually to get better.

NICU update

Well, little Johnny is holding his own. I talked to the NICU doctor. He said that they are going to watch him for a while, and continue with antibiotics for 3 days (maybe more). Right now he is living under an oxygen hood. It delivers more oxygen to him than a nasal cannula. If he keeps his saturation level up with the hood, then they will back him off to the cannula again. Dr LaPine reassured me that this is very common with c-section babies. His chest x-ray this morning looked the same as last night, so the fact that it hasn't gotten worse is good. He is a little trooper. While I was sitting with him this morning, he was holding my finger the whole time. I didn't want to leave him, but I was starting to hurt and needed to go rest. The NICU came up to my room a few minutes ago. They are going to put an arterial line in Johnny's belly button to look at this oxygen levels in his blood. He is still breathing too many breaths per minute. Dr LaPine will be back when the procedure is done and let me know how things are.

John John our little leprechaun

Our little boy is finally here. John Benoni Campbell was born yesterday March 17th at 8:08 am. What a wail he gave to let us know he was fiesty. He is absolutely beautiful!!! I am bias what can I say. He weighed in at 7 lbs 7oz and was 20.5 inches long. Miss Catie-bug came to see him yesterday afternoon and started to freak out when she saw me la. ying in bed, with an IV and compression booties on my calves. I quickly tolder her I was ok and that we had a present. Her eyes got big and she said "present?". I said yes, that we have a new baby. She looked at Johnny and was so precious. She said "ohhhhh, cute." we knew she was in love with him. She immediately wanted to hold him. She snuggled on my bed with him and patted his belly. When he was in the bassinette, she kept saying "me go see" and would walk over to him and say "ma, see Johnny." Can I tell you, the two of them are just so precious; what wonderful blessings.
Barrie and Catie left about 6pm; both were falling asleep very fast. At about 930pmish, my nurse took little John to the nursery so I could get a few hours of sleep. About 20 minutes later, just a I started to doze, his nursery nurse came in and said he was having trouble and was going down to the NICU. I instantly lost it. She said that he was doing good for the first 10 minutes then started getting blue around the mouth. His oxygen sats started to drop into the 70/80's - not good. His temperature started to also to drop. Barrie came back in, with his brother staying at our house to let Catie sleep. I ran down to the NICU (well, not actually ran....more like walked with caution so I wouldn't hurt my incision.) They did a chest xray which showed he had some fluid in his lungs which is very common with Csection babies. He was given some antibiotics, fluid to bring his sugar level up, and put on oxygen to help fight the fluid.Jeremy, our wonderful home teacher, came and gave both the baby and me a blessing of healing, health and comfort. We are just truely blessed to have him and Emlyn in our lives!!
I didn't sleep very well - ok so I didnt sleep. I went down to see Johnny at about 445am and he was doing about the same. They are going to do another chest xray this a.m. to see if the antibiotic worked / get a game plan on how long he will be there so on and so forth.
We have been blessed tremendously with him though. He is otherwise very health, and just so beautiful, so perfect. I'll keep everyone posted as the day(s) go on :)

D-day :)

The time has come. This Wednesday I will be going in for a csection and we will be welcoming our little leprechaun. I have been having contractions on and off for a few weeks now. It has been much harder this time around with doing things-walking, moving, sleeping etc. Catie and Barrie have both been a huge help, with Barrie taking over house chores and Catie walking and throwing things in the "ba-bage" for me. I am nervous for this little guy coming. I keep thinking how I am going to split my love between both my angels. I am so excited for Wednesday. I'll post pictures of little John as soon as I am home from the hospital.