Andrew day 22

He is doing great today. His ox saturation is high 90s. They scaled his vent pressure from 14 down to 11 last night. He was on his tummy all night and he tolerated the low pressure well. They flipped him over to his back this morning, his co2 level rose and is now hanging out in the 70s.

They are looking toward Monday to see if he can come off the ventilator and on to CPAP.

His feedings are going well and he is up to 15 mil every 3 hours. He still hates wet or poppy diapers and makes sure everyone knows it. (I love that.)

Andrew day 20

Andrew started the day with his vent pressure setting at 16. They had been coming down on the pressure 2 points each day since the beginning of the week. This morning they thought about taking him off the vent all together. Dr Keller advised that they put the pressure down to 10 and watch him for 24 hours. A pressure of 10 simulates what it will be like with no breathing tube but still assisted by an oxygen mask. He tried his best, but by this afternoon he was desaturating drastically and they put him back up to 16.

He finished up the evening with really good stats, sleeping soundly, on his belly.

Andrew day 19

Andrew is down on his ventilator pressure today so that is one step closer to being weaned of the vent entirely. His feeding and pooping is going well too. Stats are looking great today so overall its been a day of progress for him. We'll take as many of those as we can get.

Andrew day 18

Andrew is doing great today. He looks so good. He is so alert when he is awake. He opens his eyes wide and moves his arms and legs. Its so fun to see him look right at me. The docs have adjusted the settings on his vent so that he is initiating all of his own breaths and appearing to like it.

He still requires a couple doses of sedative a day. It takes a lot for him to digest his milk. That, among a host of other things could be causing him discomfort. When he can't calm down on his own they give him some sedative.

He also appears to be very sensitive to sound, to people moving around, and he loves to be swaddled. He has been getting very warm when swaddled and he sets off the alarms.

I got to hold him for over an hour and he was very relaxed and happy. I almost fell asleep.

Andrew day 17

Andrew is doing well on the conventional ventilator so they changed the setting on it so that he initiates each breath and it helps him along. They don't know if he will be able to maintain this level because it often makes him very tired. So he might go back and forth between assisted and not assisted. So happy.

Alex got to take Andrews temp yesterday.

Andrew day 15

Last night they transitioned him to the conventional vent and he is tolerating it pretty well. He had had a few episodes where his oxygen saturation went way down and they have to bag ventilate him to get him back up where he belongs.

The great news of the day is that I got to hold Andrew! It was 45 minutes of bliss.

Andrew day 13

Andrew has had a great day. He is tolerating his feedings well. And making  wet diapers more than he ever has before. Chris is with him at the hospital today and he says that Andrew is alert and opening his eyes and giving cues of discomfort. His stats also look very good today.

They gave him a little blood and a diuretic which may have helped him feel better.

Andrew day 12

Andrew is doing well today. He is still recovering from the infection. The docs are looking to transition him to the conventional vent in the next couple days. He is tolerating tube feeds well. The edema in his body is much better.

baby Andrew

Andrew was born on December 9th at 10:53 pm. He was born with only one developed lung because his diaphragm only partially developed in utero. The large hole in his diaphragm allowed his belly organs to develop in his chest and the lack of space is what inhibited his left lung from growing.

The last eleven days have been a roller coaster.

Day 1-3: The goal was to get him stabilized. The docs didn't know if his lungs could function on the ventilator, so it was a surprise when he was stabilized in a couple days.

Day 4: Surgery to put the belly organs where they belong and patch the diaphragm

Day 5-6: Stabilize

Day 7: Switch to conventional ventilator in AM. Stats dropped by afternoon and they put him back on the oscillating vent. Went off the paralytics.

Day 8-10: Fighting an infection. Being treated on antibiotics. Friday was the first real low because he was maxed out on oxygen and ventilator intensity. They started putting him on his belly.

Day 11: First milk feeding. They will give him 10 ml every 6 hours through a tiny NG tube that goes down his nose into his stomach. His CO2 levels remained high today and needed a lot of suction of the secretions in his lungs.

Thanksgiving Day

Happy Thanksgiving from the hospital room at UCSF. The family joined me in here for an afternoon of pizza, quesadillas, pumpkin pie, thai salad, and turkey for one. Everyone brought their favorite thing to share. It was a great afternoon.

The best part was snuggling with my boys. We watched the movie G-Force and I got to take my first "outing" outside the room. I still can't leave the building, so we went to a little patio on another floor. The fresh air was nice still. And Jacob had a fun time playing on the scupltures and running around.

Some friends from San Jose came to visit as well. It was great to see familiar faces and get some extra hugs in. We have so much to be thankful for this year.

Grandparents Day

Grandparents day was a huge hit at the boys' school. Grandma was there spending time in both Aaron and Alex's class, watching the presentations, meeting the teachers, and friends. They all had a great time.

Jacob celebrated by wearing his new shirt "Grandpa's All Star"

Halloween 2011

Halloween was absolutely perfect this year. We converted our office into the costume changing room for the whole month of October and when the actual Halloween day came, it didn't disappoint. I was able to be a part of the school festivities by watching the costume parade and painting faces in Alex's class party.

After it got dark, we went trick or treating with a group of neighbors. Jacob sat in the stroller for more than half of it and we all enjoyed seeing our neighbors out and about.

Growing up in Portland we had to plan our costumes and decorations around the cold and rain. It is great to be here where it doesn't matter what you put outside for decorations because it doesn't rain all month. And you can dress up as anything because you don't even need a jacket on halloween night. Beautiful.

Aaron with his class at the costume parade

Alex's class picture

Original art the boys made to decorate for Halloween

Our neighbor's yard "Pirates of the Caribbean"

Our Trick or Treating friends

Jacob is Drawing

Jacob loves writing utensils. He has a tub that he dumps out several times a day with pens, crayons, colored pencils. He loves to take caps on and off. He also loves to sit at the big boy desks and practice doing his homework.

New Dining Chairs

This is a huge deal for me. I bought our dining table over a year ago and have been searching for a set of 6 chairs that I like since then. (Its funny, I was 8 months along with Jacob when I made that purchase) New dining chairs were too expensive so I was determined to find a deal at a garage sale or on craigslist. The catch with that idea is that I also wanted them to be in perfect shape, well made and last for the kids whole life. Months of searching turned into a year. (how sad is that)

Then "nesting" settled in. I am 7 months along and I am in the mode where I look around the house and think: "Can I tolerate that bugging me for the next 6 months?" If I can't that means I have to fix it now. So this was it. I got on craigslist everyday for a week determined to find something around $20 a chair and I found it!!! These came in a set of 6 with two captain chairs.

Happy Mommy.

The Pregnancy Rolls Along

Me at 24 weeks

Presenting

Andrew Brigham McQueen

18 weeks

22 weeks

24 weeks

Alex's 7th Birthday

Presents!!!

Making the Brush-Bots

The kids turned dollar store electric toothbrushes into robots. SO FUN.

Hiking in Uvas Canyon

Chris took the boys hiking in Uvas Canyon which is a state park close to Santa Cruz. They had a great afternoon. I know this because of these pictures they took and also because they came home sweaty, smelling like boy scouts.

Fall in San Jose

...quite a bit different than fall in Michigan. I loved Michigan fall weather, but San Jose has beauties of its own. Here are a few flowers from our yard.

This is the hibiscus before and after Jakee got to it. At least you can see remorse on his face. So cute.

Labor Day Happiness

Today was a perfectly uneventful Labor Day. Chris took a ginormous bike ride in the morning. Then in the afternoon the boys played at a friends house while Chris and I toured car lots looking for the perfect vehicle for a family of 6. (Sadly, the Subaru won't cut it after the baby's born) After that we all worked together to clean the house and car. Which was a delight considering the boys knew that once the house and car were clean, Chris promised to play the wii with them. They were super speedy and awesome. Then the boys played wii while I made pesto pasta for dinner, we ate, then we went for our nightly walk. Boys in bed by 8:30. We have ourselves a perfect day.

In between cleaning tasks, we managed to take a couple cute pictures.

First day of School

It was Alex and Aaron's first day of school on Monday. They were total champs.

In the morning, Alex and Chris rode their bikes to the school, dropped Alex off, and Chris rode on to the Google shuttle stop. In the afternoon, I took Aaron to school where he met up with his new best friends Coby and Nicholas and he walked hand in hand into the room with them. As long as he had those guys by his side he couldn't care less about me. It was a perfect first day. Then Jacob and I went home and he took a nap until it was time to pick both boys up. Again, perfect for everyone involved.