Firsts

August 9 midnight

There are a lot of "firsts" that you experience in your life. Your first day of school, first kiss, first car, first time seeing the ocean and the list goes on. Some firsts are good and some are not so good.....first break up, first ticket, first accident.....I'm sure there are some really bad firsts that we have all tried to surgically remove from our memories ( in fact, if you could figure out a way to actually remove specific memories from someones mind you could make more money than Bill Gates!!!). Then there are those moments which, on the surface, seem to be one kind of memory but actually are another. Well tonight I experienced a "first". It seems like it would be a bad memory. Even though I really can't categorize it as a good memory it is one that I wouldn't get rid of no matter what. Tonight was the first time my son threw up on me. Finding throw up on you isn't exactly a good moment....it isn't really one of those moments that you look forward to or would even necessarily want to re-live.....however, it's a moment that I will never want to be without. Now, I have to clarify what exactly happened, cuz it didn't really go down the way that your are probably imagining. You see, I got thrown up on...NICU style. You see when a micro preemie eats it is through a feeding tube. That feeding tube doesn't come out once done eating. It stays in and either gets capped off or it is connected to a small tube and taped up to the top of the incubator. The tube is often left open and connected to this bigger tube to allow gas to escape the stomach. Sometimes a small amount of stomach contents will work its way back up through the feeding tube into this bigger tube and sit there. This is what happened tonight while I was holding Tyler. this tube was laying on my lap as I was holding Ty. After putting him back in the incubator I was standing next to the incubator talking to him when I discovered I had throw up on my shirt and pants. I didn't know when it happened or even that it did happen.....that is until I put my hand in it......that's getting thrown up on....NICU style. Bottom line is my reaction wasn't what I expected. Even though it was on my long sleeve Dallas Cowboys T, it still just made me smile. Tyler and Parker are both pretty much in cruise control right now. Tyler was put back onto the high flow oxygen instead of the low flow. This gives him more oxygen pressure support as well as humidifying the air. This was the last "guess" the docs tried to get his heart rate down and it seems to have worked pretty well. He is not needing as much oxygen mixed into his flow and his heart rate has come down some. He seems pretty content with this solution for now. Parker continues getting really small adjustments made to his vent which he is tolerating well. Heather and I are both pleased and completely fine with being patient with his progress. Little tiny steps are fine if that is what he needs. We don't want to push him to quickly. Getting extabated will be nice, but only when he is ready. Last note: somehow I forgot to announce a benchmark for Tyler and now Parker has reached it as well. Both boys now weigh over three pounds!!!!! As strange as it is to celebrate it is definitely a milestone. Seven weeks ago I would have been mortified at the thought of my sons only weighing three pounds......babies are supposed to be born at eight or more pounds.....five is a really scary birth weight.....and here I am celebrating three pounds.......but when you consider they were born at 1 pound 10 ounces and 1 pound 6 ounces, three pounds is a great triumph.....so for the rest of the week be on the lookout for the number three.....cuz it's lucky all week!!!