Chubby

9 1/2 Weeks

Chubby is not a name any mother wants to hear their child called.  But yesterday one of the nurses kept calling Jacob "Chubby" as a nickname and it wasn't so offensive; actually it's good to hear everyone noticing how big he's getting and seeing him layering on baby fat, chubby cheeks and thighs.  He looks so big to us now.  Everyone that comes by to see him has a comment.  Last night he was up to 4 lbs, 9 oz.  (I just came back from the hospital and they had not weighed him yet tonight because he had a pretty bad spell).

Tonight he had a bad apnea spell where he had to be bagged and it took awhile for his heart rate and oxygen saturation to come back up and stay up.  He had not had one since Saturday night.  Saturday night's spell we could blame on the vaccinations, and this one we can blame on the lower oxygen flow - he was lowered from 4.0 liters per minute to 3.0 liters per minute.  We hope he has a better rest-of-the-night and better day tomorrow and that he adjusts to being on a lower oxygen flow.  It is such a good thing for him to be weaning down on oxygen because that brings him steps closer to coming home, but it is never easy to watch a severe apnea spell where he turns blue, his heart rate tanks and he has a team of nurses and respiratory therapists bagging him, trying to bother him, flick him, to make him cry and breathe and get oxygen back in his bloodstream.

Over the weekend we also got the first indication that Jacob might not be home by Christmas.  The doctors really don't like to talk about when he could be going home, other than talking in generalities, like "he has come a long way, but he still has a long way to go."  But in our last conversation, one of his doctors said that she won't send Jacob home when he is still having this type of apnea. And in the same conversation she said often babies like Jacob continue the apnea well past their due dates.  I know it is still possible for him to come home for Christmas, so we will not give up hope.  His weight gain and feeding is going so well, we just have to get the apnea under control and continue to wean down his oxygen.