Day 52: Frankie Smiles a Lot

Well, today is just another typical roller coaster, two steps forward, one step back kind of day in the NICU. When I called at 8am to check on Frankie, they said he was doing great. He slept like a rock star over night and woke up on a good mood. They hadn't done rounds yet so there weren't any changes for the day. He has been taking about half of his 75ml feeds at each feeding. We have decided to stick to the Dr. Brown's bottles because he just isn't a fan of the Born Free ones. Good thing I kept the receipts for those suckers! Looks like I will be making a trip to Babies R Us and making an exchange.

Around 1 o'clock I decided to call and check on Frankie again. I just felt like something was wrong. Man, a mother's intuition doesn't play around! When I called they said that he was doing good, BUT they had to go back up to 2 liters on his air. Which means, he is back on high humidity, which tends to drown him because of the water in the humidity line. This is also the air that we can not go home on. We know that this is only a minor set back but it still sucks, bad. The doctors and nurses said this isn't a major thing (yea, to them it's not but try having it be your kid) and that they may start weening him again in the next day or so. The reason he is back on high humidity? Apparently he was "having a hard time catching his breath" a.k.a, "someone let my baby with PPHN cry his lungs out for too long and he threw himself back into a PPHN fit". Thank you very much. I'm honestly not blaming anyone, just venting. So, hopefully tomorrow or within the next couple of days he will start weening again. They also think he isn't fully adjusted to the new steroids which may cause him to breath harder. He's been on these since Friday, so not sure about that. People may think I'm nuts but this kid gets upset and if he cries too long and too hard, he can't catch his breath and it freaks him out so we try our hardest to avoid those situations.

Tomorrow we will start riding that roller coaster back up.

When we got here today Frankie was sleeping. He woke up about a half hour or so after us getting here. Man, he couldn't have been any damn cuter when he woke up! ALL SMILES! It was so adorable! We changed his diaper and gave him a bottle and he was a happy camper. Around 6 o'clock we headed out to dinner with Linda, Jaclyn, Brandon, Tino, Cara, Sal and Tino. It was such a great dinner. So nice to eat good food with good people. We needed that! So, thank you Linda!

When we returned from dinner Frankie was getting rocked by his pretty, sweet nurse Kristin. He had taken a little of his bottle and then decided to give her a little trouble. Frankie doesn't know that we are onto his little game of, "I will do my pitiful fake cry to make the pretty ladies hold me". The nurses just love him and his cute self. That makes us happy!

Right now he is sleeping in Joe's arms and has been for the last three hours. Those two are such a cute pair, I tell ya. Frankie is probably going to miss his bath tonight at this rate. We don't plan on waking him to do that, especially at 12:12am. That'll just make for a crankie Frankie. I do believe that is all for now. Love to you all!