Day 10

This evening will mark 10 days that Riley has been here in the hospital. He is doing well overall, although there have been some minor setbacks.

He is now able to do 4 feedings a day, at 8am, 2pm, 8pm, and 2am which means I am staying at the hospital. They provide an overnight room for free for situations like this, and I am right next to the nursery where Riley is staying. Its definitely kind of boring, but so far has been ok. I have a cold and have been able to spend the in between time resting, which is nice.

He was moved from the incubator to an open crib, but wasn't able to tolerate it, so he went back in today. This morning his vitals were a little bit wacky, so they aren't sure yet how he is tolerating 4 feedings. He has gained some weight in the last couple of days, so we hope to continue that.

Riley's biggest problem right now is staying warm. He doesn't have enough fat to keep himself warm, which is why he is back in the incubator. Yesterday and last night he had socks on his hands and feet, a onesie, 2 pairs of pants, pajamas and 2 warm blankets, and 2 hats and still wasn't able to keep his own temperature up. He won't be able to come home until he gains enough weight to maintain that himself. The doctor tells us we will need to be really patient at this stage.

Cameron continues to stay with my parents since I'm now gone all day. Matt goes and stays there after work so that Cameron gets to see at least one parent. I've struggled emotionally lately knowing I am going to be spending so much time away from Cameron and Matt. My Dad reminded me that there are other people who can take care of what Cam needs right now, but I'm the only one who can take care of what Riley needs, and that helps. I'm so grateful for my parents. They have been such a huge support through all of this. My sweet mom even gave up a vacation she was looking forward to going on with my Dad. She was supposed to leave tomorrow, but instead gave up her ticket, which they could get a refund or exchange for. I don't know what I would do without her!

That's all to update for now. Overall we are all doing well and still hoping our little Riley can come home soon!!
Sleepy boy
Very sleepy boy
My little leprechaun
HUGE Binky!

Riley Gets to Wear Clothes!

Today they took out Riley's IV--everybody cheer! I hated that IV and how often they had to move it on the poor little guy.

He is now doing two feedings from me per day, one in the morning, and one at night. The doctors are concerned because he should be gaining weight at this point, but he continues to lose a little everyday. At this point we have been told things can move slowly because while on two feedings a day, he needs to gain for two days, then we will move to four feedings, and he needs to gain two days in a row, and up and up. Hopefully the little guy will start to chunk up soon!

When I went in this afternoon, he was in a cute little set of ducky pajamas! He has just been in his diaper up until now so that they could regulate his body temperature for him. They are trying now to put him in clothes to see if he can regulate his own temperature without using too much energy to gain weight. We'll see how it goes, but he looks darn cute! If he can warm himself he will get to move to a new type of bed.

Here are a few pictures of Riley, since we haven't posted many.

Our sweet neighbor gave Matt and I tickets to the Jazz game last night so we could just get away from everything for awhile. We got to go to a VIP dinner before tip off, and the seats were on the second row! We had so much fun!The little guy gets so exhausted when he nurses that we have to take lots of wake up breaks!

Tiny, tiny feet

Oops

In case you checked our blog and read our update, it only published half of it for some reason. It is now complete if you wanted the rest of the update...

Just Checking In

I've had a couple of people ask for a little update, so here goes:

First, Riley. It seems like there are tiny ups and downs each day, but overall he is doing well. We were discharged from the hospital on Friday, and that was a really hard day. It is really difficult to walk out of the hospital where you had a baby, with no baby to take home. It is also hard knowing that he is there without me while I'm off with the rest of my family-it just feels like somebody is missing. They have told us to plan on bringing him home around his due date, which is now 6 weeks away, but they say some babies come home early, so we are hopeful.
Still, we are so grateful that he is in such good hands and that things are as good as can be in the situation. His nurses all love him and are so sweet with him. They call us to keep us posted on every tiny little thing, and we can call the hospital day or night, which I sometimes do.
He is still on some oxygen. He can breathe on his own, but not enough yet to keep his airways fully open. He is also still on the "baby" bed. Hopefully he will graduate soon to an isolette, which means he is better able to regulate his own body temp. He is receiving some milk now through a tube in his nose and down to his stomach and we are working on sucking as well. He is such a sweet boy and so tolerant. It is definitely hard to watch him with all the tubes, machines and iv's, which have to be moved to a new place anywhere from every 6-24 hours since the fluids are so hard on his veins. Today we watched as he blew a vein on the iv in his head, and they tried 4 times to place it, blowing out all those veins. Not fun. Overall he is doing well and we are grateful for the awesome progress he has made. He is so resilient and adorable and we hope he can come home with us soon.

As for me, we may have spoken a little too soon about how well I was doing compared with last time. While I didn't have the additional trauma that Cameron did to my body, we quickly realized that the hormone issue is still a big problem as I am pumping milk and still have the hormones of pregnancy in my body. I am walking, which I barely was last time, but having plenty of difficulty doing it. I am so thankful that it isn't as bad as last time, but as the same time so thankful to have my Mom and Matt so close right now to help while I will take a longer recovery.

Cameron is struggling a little with all the adjustments of having Mom and Dad gone a lot, but he is doing well. He loves being with my Mom (sometimes more than us) so it is nice for him to have some stability with somebody during all this.

Thanks for all your prayers and kind words. We are overwhelmed by the love we are surrounded by. We'll keep you posted as things progress.

Matt, Camille, Cameron and Riley

New Baby

You may have heard...Camille and I went to the hospital on Tuesday morning because Camille started going into labor, being only 33 weeks along.  After being in labor for 40.5 hours the actual delivery only took 16 minutes.

Our tiny baby boy was born at 6:48 pm yesterday (March 9th), actually bigger than what everyone was expecting.  He weighed in at 4lbs 8.5 ounces and was 17 inches long.  All initial tests were fairly consistent with the doctors expectations, however we are pleased to report that he has all 20 fingers and toes and appears to have all other body-parts intact and functioning, except for one.  As is common for a child born at his age, his lungs were not yet fully developed, causing him difficulty in breathing and distributing oxygen.  However we were able to get a couple doses of a steroid medicine in him in time, which seem to be helping him along.  He has already stopped wheezing and is starting to regulate the oxygen flow in his blood.

We have decided on the name: Riley Edward Tanner.  (you may know that my dad's and Camille's dad's middle name is also Edward)

Riley is currently in a Special Care Unit for at risk (pre-term) babies.  He has his own little room and a nurse watching over him 24 hours a day.  Unless something unexpected changes in either direction, he will stay here until his due date, which is the last week of April.  Luckily we live less than 2 miles from the hospital and have been offered some extended stay facilities so that Camille and I can stay close.  This will also give us some time to get things ready for him at home since we just moved 2 weeks ago and aren't completely settled in...we thought we still had a month or so.

Camille is also doing great.  She obviously has all of the standard soreness and pain, but our biggest concern, that she would more seriously and more permanently damage her body than she did with Cameron, does not appear to have occurred.  At this point last time she had completely lost her ability to walk and was in excruciating pain.  This time though, she is already up and moving on her own, even walking a little bit.  We're not sure why this time is so different, except that Riley was much smaller and we were much more careful during the delivery.

We are so happy that we really only have great news to share, considering the circumstances, and we are excited to welcome very new and beautiful little boy into our family.  Here are a couple pictures that were taken immediately after the delivery.  There will be more to come.

We hope you all are doing well and thank you for all of your thoughts, messages, and prayers.


Love,

Matt, Camille, Cameron, and Riley

He's Here!

Baby Tanner (no name quite yet) arrived at 6:48 pm. He weighed 4 lbs 8 oz, so bigger than the doctor thought, which is very good. He has lots of dark hair and at least sounded like he had a good set of lungs. He is currently in the NICU with Matt and will stay there. I'll be able to go see him once the epidural wears off. We are so excited! Thank you all for your thought and prayers. Keep them coming so we can have a healthy boy to take home in hopefully not too long!

Ready or Not!

So, after being in labor over 36 hours now, they have finally decided to break my water because the baby is showing mild signs of stress and they need to get things moving. I've kind of been stuck between 5 and 7 all day today and contractions are slowing, but like I said before, there is no going back at this point. We are just waiting now for the baby to drop and the dilation to be complete, and we have no idea how long that will be at this point. We'll keep you posted if we get any new info!

Quick update

Not much is happening at this point, but I've promised a few people I would keep them up to date as we go.

I've finally reached a 7 and my water sac looks like it could be very close to breaking, and if it does they say things should progress quickly since his head will be so little. We are hoping to make it to 12:30 today so we can have the second shot to help his lungs develop more quickly, but we'll just have to see if we make it there.

That's really it for now. I'm at 32 hours of labor and going stir crazy, but we are glad that he is staying in as long as he can since each hour counts at this point. Thanks for all the prayers, well wishes, and offers for help. We feel so thankful to have so many wonderful friends and family!

Update

What does one do while sitting in the hospital at 4 am and not being able to sleep at all? Blog of course!

Here is the latest, and again this is mostly for documenting purposes for our own little family--I'm not expecting most people to read this! Like I had said, contractions felt to me to be starting up again, and I was right. I began to dilate again to a 4 and was told at that point there isn't exactly any turning back. Even if labor didn't progress further, I wouldn't be leaving the hospital until a baby came.

Many of you know that it was highly recommended for me to have a c-section due to my severe hip problems, and we were planning to. However, my doctor is now saying she thinks it would be better to go a normal route. They say the baby wil be 4 lbs or less, which means a possibility of less trauma from the baby moving through the birth canal, less pushing, and they intend to be really careful with placement of my legs as well. All of those things added to the trauma with Cam's delivery. After much thought and a sweet blessing from Matt, we have decided to go that route, avoid major surgery, and have faith that things will turn out alright. There was also some risk that I had eaten a big lunch when they initially thought labor had stopped, as they don't like to do surgery on a full stomach since it increases the risks of certain other problems.

After waiting for quite awhile the contractions were getting pretty severe and I went ahead with the epidural...yay! Unfortunately now I have been stuck at a 5 for awhile without progressing and they aren't sure why since contractions have continued just as regularly. I'll be checked again at 6 am and we'll go from there. The options as I understand them are to remove the epidural and watch my progress for awhile, or to give me pitocin or break my water and get things moving, the second being more likely.

I've now been in labor a little over 24 hours and I'm going a little stir crazy since I couldn't sleep last night from the contractions, and after trying for the last 6 hours I haven't been able to sleep much tonight either--oh the joys of labor! If anyone out there is bored at 4 am, feel free to visit. Just kidding--totally kidding! That's all for now folks!

Erggghhhhh.....

I love Cameron, I love being able to have kids. I don't love being pregnant, and apparently it doesn't like me either. I started having contractions last night, and honestly thought it was nothing except my back was really hurting, so I called my doctor. They sent me in to labor and delivery and I figured it would be nothing and I'd be home in a couple of hours. Turns out I am dilated and effaced beyond what I should be at 33 weeks. I've had three shots and 4 pills to stop the contractions, as well as a few other tests to rule out any other problems. The contractions stopped for awhile, although they are picking up a little again and my doctor is worried about this baby coming! We definitely weren't prepared for that when we woke up this morning.

Anyhoo...if they can get the labor to stop we can head home tomorrow with orders of strict bedrest. Yipee! I've had my first round of steroid shots to help this little guy's lungs in case anything does happen early, but I'm definitely feeling nervous about a pre-term baby. Please keep us in your prayers! We'll keep you posted (if anybody still reads this thing)!