Today I was at the hospital from 1pm to 5pm. I got to try to nurse Nico for the first time. He did quite well for his age and I am looking forward to trying again tomorrow. Today Nico weighed 4lbs. 14.1 oz. Nico is doing excellent with his bottles and they expect the feeding tube to come out in the next day or two. His nutritional IV came out this morning, so the feeding tube is the only thing left. Nico's platelet counts have gone up on their own since his last tranfusion. Last Thursday they were 66,000 and on Saturday they were 125,000. We do have an account set up at the gulf coast blood bank and if you'd like to give blood we'd appreciate it, as surgery is still a possibility. He is A+ blood type. The web site is http://www.giveblood.org/ and the phone number is (713) 790-1200. Nico's kidneys seem to have fully recovered from distress.
The blood coagulation tests that have come back so far have all been normal, including the homocysteine gene and the factor 5 leiden. The results of the rest of those tests won't be complete for at least another week.
We got the results from his MRI. Dr. Bhakta sat down with me for over an hour late this afternoon and showed me pictures of the brain and explained all of the terms of everything that happened to Nico's brain right before he was delivered and since. There are a lot of big words (white matter ischemia, intraventricular hemorrhaging, watershed injury, hydrocephalis and punctate hemorraghing on both sides of the brain). As far as monitoring Nico's brain, he will have an ultrasound on Friday and weekly to monitor the fluid in his brain and determine whether it will take care of itself or if he will need to have surgery to drain it. His head circumference is being measure daily and has been growing normally so far. The big takeaway points the doctor said is the at this point our child appears completely normal for any preemie his age. An infant's brain has much more ability to heal itself than an adult brain, as it is still growing. And there is no way to know how much the bleeding has affected him until he grows and we can see whether he is reaching milestones or not. He said any doctor that would try to make predictions would be lying to us. There is no way. The hospital will make every possible resource available to us. He will have a developmental evaluation before he leaves the hospital. Early childhood evaluation will come visit us in our home to check on his progress periodically and will offer any physical and occupation therapy he may need up until age 3. At this point we have still been given no idea as to when he might be able to come home. It all depends on his continued test results and how he continues to do with his bottle/breastfeeding.
I am sorry I cannot tell people all of this in person, but it has taken me almost an hour to type this. It is so complicated and so much information to absorb. We appreciate everyone's love, support and prayers. We will continue to pray for healing for Nico and to trust God for what our future holds.