11 weeks old

Oliver is 11 weeks old today, and is up to 4 lbs 10 oz and 16 inches long.  He's gaining weight like a champ.  He's been nursing well, and last night took 30 ml from a bottle.  He's down to 2 1/2 lbs of pressure on his oxygen, but still desatting (oxygen saturation falling) a couple of times a day, and having a Brady (heart rate drops drastically) or two a day.

Look at those cheeks!

For the past four weeks, Oliver's eyes have been checked weekly to monitor his ROP.  Yesterday, we got a call from his eye doctor that it had changed from moderate to severe.  She recommended surgery, and immediately.  However, when the eye surgeon looked at his eyes today, he felt that surgery could still wait a while, but he wanted a second opinion.  So three eye exams in two days for the poor guy.  I haven't heard back yet on the second opinion.

From what I understand, ROP occurs when preemies eyes aren't fully developed in the womb.  The blood vessels behind his eyes develop differently when they're exposed to oxygen, and they start growing erratically.  If this growth continues, the blood vessels can actually detach the retina from the eye, resulting in the loss of vision.  The surgery would be to laser off the blood vessels that are growing towards the sides of the back of the eyes.  This would result in him losing his periphery vision, but would hopefully prevent the blood vessels from continuing to grow, but it doesn't guarantee that it won't continue.

The scariest part of Oliver possibly having surgery at this point is that it would require him to go back onto a ventilator.  Since his Chronic Lung Disease is still severe, this would be a huge setback.  Every little bit of time that he spends ventilated can cause further damage to his lungs.  And the worse the lungs are to begin with, the longer it usually takes for them to get extubated.

I'm staring at my phone, pleading with it to ring.  I think I'm going to have to start trying to track someone at the hospital down to find out what has been decided.  Here's hoping we have a little longer before we need to start worrying about this surgery.

Is it just me, or does my kid look like Kevin James?

It looks like we're going to need to start Nathaniel in all day daycare so that I can spend extra time out at the hospital.  I was hoping to avoid that, but hopefully we're down to a month or less in the NICU, so it would be for just a short time.  Luckily, he does seem to like it there. 

Fun at the park, even when it's chilly