Preemies and Hernias

Its been a little while since I've posted here, but not for lack of wanting to.  Having 2 kids is a little different than one and its been hard to find the time.

First, I want to give a quick update on my 35-weeker who is now about 5 weeks old.  Unfortunately,  he's been like most preemies and has had a very eventful little life so far.  Just in the past month we been through - NICU, Refulx, Trush, and now hernias!

All About APGAR Scores

If you've had a baby born prematurely or in the NICU, you still might not have heard of APGAR scores.  Medical personnel use theses scores, taken at 1 minute and 5 minutes after birth, to determine what next steps if any need to be taken to stabilize a newborn. My wife was a NICU nurse and so she is very familiar with the scoring system and, in fact, it was one of the first things she wanted me to find out from our son's nurse.  You see, knowing these scores my wife, and medical staff, would know his health at birth (and due to the fact that my son had problems breathing when he was born, my wife was very interesting in his scores).

What is an APGAR score?

My Baby Didn't Cry When He Was Born

Our first son, who was born at 29 weeks 6 days cried when he was born.  My new son (35 weeks, 2 days) did not cry when he was born. I might be making a bigger deal out of this than it actually is, and certainly others have had to experience much worse, but boy it was scary! Here's what happened...

This c-section was much slower, calmer, and more enjoyable than the first (the first was an emergency), that is, until he was born.  I followed the baby over to the place where he was going to be examined (as I had previously planned) and it wasn't until we got there when I noticed things weren't quite right - my baby wasn't breathing.  After some quick suctioning, he still wasn't breathing so they starting bagging him.  It was this same oxygen bag that we saw every day for 6 weeks with our first, hanging on the wall in the NICU, but I'd never seen it in action - You don't want to see it in action.

My New Preemie

If you follow me on Twitter (@PreemieDads), you already know that my 2nd preemie was born yesterday.  He was 5lbs 15oz, but almost 20 inches long!  He is in the NICU learning how to breathe air, but it otherwise healthy.  I will provide a more thorough update later, but, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words...

Live Tweeting the Premature Birth of my Son

In the name of Prematurity Awareness and Preemie Dads everywhere, I will be live tweeting the premature birth of our second son.  I call it live tweeting, but really i'll just provide random updates whenever possible (does that count as "Live tweeting?")  It's hard to know just how often I'll be able to keep you informed because obviously my first priority is to my wife and child, but I will tweet updates throughout the morning!

The C-Section is scheduled for 12:15pm (we have to be at the hospital at 10:45am), so I will be tweeting about 10:30am!! (Pacific Time).

All you need to do it follow @PreemieDads and follow in as my son is born at 35 weeks 2 days via scheduled Cesarean-Section.

Preparing for Preemie #2

Yesterday my wife and I went to a doctor's appointment with her OB.  They result of the appointment was that they moved up her scheduled C-Section date from the Jan. 13th to 4th.  That's right - next Tuesday!!

Here's why...