Silvestro Family: NICU

Here's an update of how our little Luca is doing so far:

On Tuesday, his breathing tube was taken out, and he was put on a CPAP. The CPAP provided room air with a little positive pressure, so he did not have to work so hard to breathe. On Wednesday, the CPAP was taken off, and he's been breathing on his own since (yay!). He still has some apnea spells (where he stops breathing), but that's apparently normal for premies his age, and most of his spells are over quick and he's been able to correct it on his own without the nurses coming to help him out. It's sort of like his brain forgets to tell him to breathe-because it's not really supposed to have to breathe yet! The NICU is watching him closely, and hopefully he'll grow out of these in a few days. It's scary to think of him having episodes of 'not breathing', but we are hopeful that he'll get it soon!

He's started eating formula. He's not developed enough to take it in by mouth, so they are feeding him with a nasogastric tube right now. He's up to 25 ml every 4 hours, and they are increasing it every day. As the feedings increase, they decrease the amount of sugar water that they give him by IV. Once he is up to the full feeding every 4 hours, they can take out his IV.... I can't wait for that day!

The NICU was worried that his peeling skin, which can still be seen in the photos below, was due to an infection. They have now ruled out any skin infections, which is a big relief to us. It was no fun hearing about all the invasive procedures they did to make sure he didn't have an infection though :(. Poor little guy had to go through lots of blood cultures, and even had to get a lumbar puncture to check his spinal fluid for infection! I'm just happy they didn't find anything.

Every day he is looking better and stronger. Once he's off the IV and he no longer has the apnea episodes, he can be transferred to another hospital. We're looking forward to having him transferred to South Shore Hospital, which is 5 minutes away from us. Much better than an hour plus ride into Boston.

Lisa and I have been kangaroo-ing him everyday. Basically, they take him out of the incubator and put him down our shirts so we can have some skin-to-skin bonding time with him. It's a nice way that we can start connecting with him more, since it's tough with him being in the NICU.

On Tuesday night our friend Joc came by and took a few pictures of Luca. Thanks Joc!
Here are some of my favorites:

Here he is when he still had his cpap to help him breathe