Morning update

Oliver asleep last night with his dummy

Wide awake!
How much of my hands fit into my mouth?

Well as you can see by the photos Oliver is doing amazingly well, he's still in the neonatal HDU in an incubator but has been over 36 hours breathing on his own on room air. He is up to 7ml per hour on his NG feeds so getting there to getting off the drip. He now weighs 1.96kg .
Last night we tried to see if he'd latch on to me which he did without hardly any help and had a few really good sucks so i'm really hopefull with time as he gets stronger this will come on :)
I'm making the most of spending time with Oliver and Ed together as we won't have this time come Monday as Ed will be back at work.

AM Update

Morning,
I hope you enjoyed the photo's - if you missed them look below! I finally worked out how to get them across and it wasnt me being thick it was the adapter to put the micro SD into to make it into an SD card size was faulty! Anyway thats all sorted now so i'll be able to update with photos from now on :)
I wanted to say a MASSIVE thank-you to everyone for their kind words prayers cards gifts and support, i will get round to thank-you all individually but I just wanted to let you know we do really really appreciate it just don't have alot of time at the moment as i'm sure you can imagine. Thank god i'm expressing my milk for Oliver as that is the only time I actually get to sit down rest and get online at the moment!
Oliver is doing amazingly well now he's really turned the corner now and we're on the right road. Oliver has been off CPAP and oxygen since 10am 29/5 and is maintaining his sats and his blood gases are good! He has been moved out of Neonatal Intensive Care and into the Neonatal High Dependancy unit! He is still on his glucose drip but slowly weaning down and slowly increasing his milk down his NG tube we need to get up to 13.5ml per hour and when I left him this morning at 10 he was on 7ml per hour so we're getting there.
His jaundice has cleared up alot. He's still having a few episodes whe his heart rate and oxygen level dips really quite low for a few seconds but he recovers from there well and just needs a little bit of stimulation to remind him the machines arn't doing it all for him anymore!
Yesterdat afternoon Ed and I went up while mum had abi we washed him and changed his nappy it was nice to get some quality time together with my two boys we both got to hold him too which was amazing thats the first time Edward has held him.
I popped up again in the evening with mum which was nice but i'm pretty tired now so actually going to lay down for half hour I think, everything else will have to wait!

Oliver Photos

As promised in no particular order.....

The first morning home

Morning all,

A morning update just to let you know how we're all doing. I was officially discharged last night (good job really as i'd emtied my room and taken every single thing home earlier in the day!!) Mum took me up to Oliver once Ed and I had got Abi to bed. It was a little hectic yesterday afternoon getting home etc but was really nice and was lovely to be here to put Abi to bed. Ed has been amazing with her and taught her to do so much on her own as I can't lift her as I had a c-section and you can't lift anything heavier than your baby for at least 6 weeks! She can get in and out of her car seat on her own and she can get in and out of her bed - we just need to suss the toilet! Bless her it doesn't help her she is so little :)

Ed was sorting out some photo's of Oliver for me for the side of my bed when we got home and Abi wanted some too - I thought that was lovely and good sign!! She tells me she loves her little brother and she's a big sister! :)

I got to do Olivers mouth care and nappy change when I arrived which is lovely to get some hands on things with him, they took him off CPAP for a while so I could give him a proper wash and he did so well they let me do some kangaroo care without CPAP too! He had a little facial oxygen but held his sats (oxygen levels) really well! It was the most amazing feeling having him skin to skin on me again he seems to really love it too his heart rate comes right down. He got himself into the fetal position and went to sleep! Mum got some pictures but unfortunately I still can't get them onto my lap top - Ed's going to have a look for me today we had a look last night but it was v late.

Once mum and I had said good night to Oliver and he was stable back on his CPAP with his pilots goggles on to protect his eyes from the lights of the photo therapy machine we went up to the postnatal ward to get discharged, I have to go back everyday but i'll be up there everyday anyway seeing Oliver and at least this way I get some time with Abi and Ed too.

I didn't sleep brilliantly but better than I had in hospital, i'm weaning my oxygen down now as I really don't want to be so dependant on it i'm having long periods off it too and my sats haven't been going too low which is great, so I only slept on 2lpm last night but it wasn't my chest stopping my sleeping was worrying about Oliver and getting comfy with my stomach too as i'm still pretty sore from the c-section. It does feel really weird being home - hard to explain but i'm not pregnant but Oliver isn't home with us either and its not right. I'm hoping it'll become easier but for the moment poor Ed has to put up with the hormones from me!!

I rang up first thing this morning while Ed and Abi were still asleep to get an update on Oliver - he'd had a great stable night and apart from being alittle sick this morning due to the pressures of the CPAP he's fine. So they omitted one feed just to give him a rest.

Abi is up now so i'm off to have a bath and get dressed we're going up to see Oliver in a bit. I'll update again tonight.

Oliver Malcolm is here!

I'm sorry for the slow updates but i've only just got home from hospital about an hour ago!
Oliver Malcolm was born on 22/05/08 at 15:44 weighing 2.03kg
He's in the NICU still but is now on CPAP which means he is breathing on his own but a machine is just giving him a little support. He's had a rough start giving us a few scares! But we seem to have turned the corner now on the right road to recovery. I've been able to hold him twice too which has been so nice and helped me bond with him, the second time was kangaroo care where you have the baby on your chest skin to skin which I must admit was the most amazing feeling in the world!
They started to give him some of my milk starting 1ml every 4 hours through an NG tube into his stomach last night apart from his glucose drip this is the first thing he's had feed wise so hopefully this will help his recovery and give him the strength he needs to fight :)
I promise to get some pictures up here later i've got my new phone now so need to work out how to do it.
I will keep you all updated it will be easier now i'm home.

The eve of the big day

Just a quick post tonight to let you know that the c-section should be taking place shortly after 2pm tomorrow (Thursday 22/5).
I don't have to be there till 11am as had all the bloods and paperwork done today which is nice.
I think everything is pretty much sorted now.
I had a lovey all be it very tirng day yesterday with Alice we went to Lakeside for the day and had lovely tapas lunch too :) I slept well last night was in bed by 7pm!
It was all sorted out today chest side of things what will happen i'll go to HDU from theatre until i'm stable and then to the ward. Hopefully it won't be too long till I'm stable enough chest wise to get to St Johns (the maternity hospital) where my little man will be taken once being born.
Im pretty nervous to the point of being sick but am sure everything will be fine!
I'll talk to you again once i'm a mummy of two!!

Sunday

Me feeling very fat at 31 weeks!

My new hair cut!!
Abi in the babies car seat!!

I've had a nice few days we've been getting the final bits ready for the little mans arrival on Thurday including washing the car seat covers when we'd put it all back together Abi got in and strapped herself in!! She is still in the right weight range to fit in this seat all be it a bit long!

I had my hair cut - which was a lovely surprise as mum had sorted it all with our hair dressers that it was ok to go in on oxygen etc they were all lovely and it def makes you feel better to be pampered!

We also had our tour around the NICU neonatal intensive care unit yesterday which although was scary was nice to meet the staff and see where our little man will be brought as i'll be in a different hospital to him at first. We stopped off at mothercare on the way home to get some prem nappies as you have to provide your own while your baby is on the unit - they are so tiny!

Ive got a nice few days planned as my last few pregnant!

Monday mum has Abi so i'll be resting lots and my new upgrade(another story i must update about that later) mobile phone which i talked myself into :) will arrive so i'll get to play with that.

Tuesday my best friend Alice is coming for the day i'm hoping if I feel well enough to go out to lunch and even a bit of retail therapy in my chair of course!

Wed i have an appt at the Maternity hospital to do all the paperwork for Thurday and then I have chest clinic at the main hospital so will be busy morning. In the afternoon Abi will have her friend eleanor over in the afternoon to play which will be nice as I can rest and she loves playing with eleanor.

Then Thursday is the big day!!! So nervous but so excited! :)

Alot Happier

How can you not be happier when you wake up to this every monring :)

I'm sorry if I came across selfish yesterday to you all on here and on msn I was just so disapointed!

I didn't sleep too well last night but have done quite alot today and things are more sorted in my head.

On the day Ed, my mum and I will be going up to the hospital and Abi will be with Eds mum and his two sisters who she just adores!
Ed will be in theatre with me and mum will be there after so Ed can go across to the Maternity hospital with the baby and mum can stay with me until i'm stable enough to transfer across to the Maternity Hospital. So now thats all in my mind and I know where everyone will be thats a big weight off my mind.

The hospital rang today and Ed and I are going to the Maternity hospital on Saturday to meet the NICU staff and look around so I am happier about everything.

I'm ok this eve and looking forward to a nice weekend just the 3 of us the last one!!

Thanks to everyone for all their lovely words :)

We got our date!

Wow well its taken me all day to actually sit down and type this as I haven't been too sure how to word it!
The appointment today didn't go quite how we thought it would. I've been booked in for my c-section next Thursday 22nd May 2008. I'll be 32 weeks.
Its all quite scary and exciting at the same time.
I'm glad i've got to the magic 32 but feel really dissapointed in myself not to go further I got further with Abi but then every pregnancy is different and they know whats best!
8 weeks is pretty early but lets hope with being such a good size and having already had the steroid injections to mature his lungs he'll be ok :)
I'll update more when I get my head round it more I think - so much to do in a week!

31 week scan

Just a quickie tonight - we'll know more tomorrow when we see the obs dr in the morning and i'll update then. But the baby weighs 4 1/2lb so I might not be gaining weight but he def is! He looks all ok!
It was nice to see him again although he didn't want to be seen much kept moving so we didn't get a scan picture this time.
I came home and slept for 2 hours - just the smallest things are too much.
Have got up again now and had some yummy fish pie and salad for dinner. Will let you know how we get on tomorrow.

A lovely weekend

Abi enjoying digging in to daddies icecream!!

What a gorgeous weekend we've had. We've been so lucky weather wise its been gorgeous all weekend :)
We had a quiet morning on saturday getting everything sorted to go out for a pub lunch :)
Ed loaded up the car with everything and got Abi in while I walked slowly to car, he drove and off we went to the Viper pub - ed's favourite but we can only go with Abi in the summer as have to sit outside with children. This was the perfect day for it. Abi covered in factor 50 and her hat loved the freedom of the garden we told her she could run around as long as she stayed on the grass (it was nice and secure)
We met with some of ed's friends there which was nice. Abi was really good which also helped.
By the time we were heading home I was pretty shattered but it was def worth it.
Sunday Abi and I went to church for the first time together in quite a while as I just haven't been up to it but now we have the portable o2 sorted it makes things much more possible. So mum picked us up and we got settled. It was nice to go but tiring explaining to everyone about the o2 etc, everyone was lovely though.
Abi and I then slept for 3 hours when we got back! Ed's mum came over in the afternoon to help with some bits around the house which was lovely of her - so another lovely day.
Today mum had abi and I have rested - i did a little bit of sorting in the nursery everything is pretty much ready now all clothes are washed and ironed and in drawers moses basket up etc etc
I have another scan tomorrow to check the growth of the little man - hopefully everything is going well so i'll update tomorrow with another pic if we get a good one - the bigger the baby the harder it is to get a good pic.
Hope everyone is enjoying the weather while it lasts!

End of another week

Ashton and Abi in the dog kennel keeping out of the sun today!

This picture really made me giggle all the toys in the back garden and they choose to play in the dog's kennel!

Physio went really well yesterday, she ordered me a conserving device for my portable o2 cylinders which will make them last alot longer. Also a back for my bed so I can sleep sitting up like in hospital. We did some good physio and then some relaxation excercises which were good. I was pretty tired afterwards and seen as mum had Abi at her's i spent most of the day in bed.

When ed got home we decided it was such a nice evening we'd go for a pub garden dinner we invited mum and steve seen as they have been such stars having abi recently. It was gorgeous weather and all lovely until two stupid women sat right next to me who was sat there with a cylinder by her side with big letters plastered all over it O2 OXYGEN and promptly lit up their cigarettes!! I'm not moaning so much about the smoke - people have to smoke outside now and I was sat outside but the idiotic factor of smoking next to an oxygen cylinder!!

Anyway today has been nice too, mum had Abi this morning then brought her home a bit before nap time as she had to go off to shiatsu. BOC came and delivered me some new portable cylinders for the weekend he also gave me the conserving device the physio ordered yesterday which can make my cylinders last up to 4 times as long! Which is great as means we can go out more. Will take a bit of getting used to as you have to make sure you breathe in deep enough to trigger to oxygen to come out.

Abi then announced it was nap time and slept for 3 1/2 hours till I woke her up as asthon and gemma were here. We spent rest of afternoon in garden and it was lovely.

We've got a nice weekend ahead, i'm just hoping I can spend it out of hospital spent everyday last weekend back and forth to hosp!!

Hope everyone has a good one and enjoys the weather!!

Clinc update

Abi and daddy playing piano

Abi playing playdough
Abi's elephant she made all herself with a trunk!
Wow look at me another post!! I must have far too much time on my hands! I'm loving my comments thanks so much and I'm glad you like the photos I just think it cheers it up a bit.

Today I had 2 clinics to attend St Johns to see consultant obstetrition then Broomfield for chest clinic - it was too much we thought it might be and we were right i went straight to bed on getting in and didnt do any walking mum pushed me and drove.

St johns went ok - basically they are keeping a close eye on me - weekly now with scans and waiting for chest side to say right thats it no more and they'll deliver me. I'm going to have weekly scans and clinics here. So if something starts effecting baby then they can intervene.

Broomfield- i was accosted by nurses when i got in the door for blood pressure etc where we found my sats only to be 86% on o2 which wasn't the news I was hoping for! I didn't do lungfunction as not alot of point at the mo with baby pressing on lungs. We didn't have to wait too long to go into consultant we have comprimised that I can stay out of hosp if I don't deteriorate any more as its better for me and abi if i'm at home. He is going to get the ward physio to come out to me daily mon-fri to help with physio and breathing techniques to see if it will give us a bit more time! That starts tomorrow at 10am Ruth is lovely and i'm sure she'll help me loads. Mum is here all day everyday helping with everything bless her I don't know what i'd do without her. Ed is stressed at its a-levels at work.

Basically we want to hang on a bit to deliver the baby as the longer i can go the better for baby but its getting the balance right as we also don't want to me to get too poorly. 34 or even 32 would just be so much better!

I hope everyone is ok and just keep praying we can go longer :)

04-05-2008

Yay people read me :)
Makes me think I should update more often hehe
Right this weekend has been rather hectic like I said in last post I'm on verge of going in and really want to stay out if I can, Thursday mum had Abi for the day so I could completley rest. On Fridayi'd had a pretty rough night breathing wise and still wasn't great so Ed stayed home from work, my chest consultant rang to talk to me about how I was feeling etc and he was concerned by the sound of me on the phone so off we went to get checked out. This was fine we thought till we got my last portable cylinder out of the garage only to find when we connected the head bit that it was 3/4 empty when should have been full - great! By the time we got to the hosp I was on the red nearing empty but made it luckily!
Friday everything was checked I had an hours trace of the baby aswell to check that everything was ok there as if my sats are low then its not good for him. He's fine :) My sats were a little low so am now using 5lpm and my sats are sitting around 94-97% if i sit like a good girl and do nothing!
Saturday Abi went off with ed's mum to visit his grandma in southend for the day, ed went off as he had some teaching to do and seen as it was so nice I decided to sit in the garden check my emails and read my book Pippa was being really good she kept bringing her toy and then settled down beside me - result! I must have been sat there a while and I thought Im not actually feeling that great considering i'm sat here on 5lpm o2 waited a bit longer and was getting more and more out of breath, so went in to look at concentrator - all looked fine came back outside and sat down and realised what the problem was, where i thought pippa was being a good puppy laying next to me she'd actually chewed some lovely big holes in my o2 tubing!
Since the oxygen service has been taken over by BOC you don't get spares! So with my long tubing chewed i connected up to concentrator with my nasal specs tube which meant I was stuck within 1m of the concentrator - not fun. I rang up BOC and really appologetically explained they were really nice and said someone would be out within 4 hours. By this time Ed was home so he sorted out an extention lead so my concentrator could be outside next to me and within an hour a lovely man came and sorted out my tubing and gave me a spare! Result!
By this time it was time to go back up to the hospital for my checkup again the only other portable cylinder we had wasn't really portable a size ZH for those of you on o2 weighing 14kg so poor Ed now has one arm longer than the other. Unfortunately things didn't run quite so smoothly on the ward the baby kept having accelerations in his heart beat so they wanted to monitor for longer, it was also found that I had glucose +++ in my urine so probably heading down the gestational diabetes route - not really surprising being on 60mg preg for so long.
After alot of debating I was allowed home at 8pm on strict instructions I came back in morning. By the time we got home we had to pick Abi up and put her straight to bed - not nice as i'd missed her so much I wanted to spend time with her.
Abi woke up nice and early this morning though so we didnt miss her for long!
The hospital was much more positive today babies tracing was fine and my sats were 97%! So won't go back now unless any problems till Wed when I'm due at clinic.
Abi is in bed now and ed is just out playing for even song will be back shortly and i'm hoping for a nice cuddle up on the sofa and a quiet night as we haven't had one yet this bank holiday!
I'll leave you with some pictures as it makes the blog look less boring :)

Me yesterday bored sat on the CTG monitor which monitors the baby

My favourite photo - Abi kissing the baby
Abi pretend feeding the baby!
Our stupid cat who got a spoon attached to the magnet for the catflap on her collar!

01-05-2008

Scan at 22 weeks
Scan at 28 weeks

Pippa isn't quite so small now and is very cheeky!
Abi playing with her aqua draw mat brought by auntie tracey
Abi asleep on mummies hospital bed on mothers day
Abi asleep in her big girl bed! The wrong way up!
Mummy and Abi with bob the builder!

I think I need to stop starting my post by apologising as thats just getting boring! I don't know if anyone is even still checking my blog! I am very very naughty!


I am now nearing 30 weeks pregnant, and unfortunately things haven't been such sweet sailing as we'd hoped and the first half of the pregnancy were. I've been in and out of hospital, in ITU with my asthma and then contracting Hospital contracted pneumonia!!


I am at home at the moment but am on o2 all the time and am on the edge of going in. I've had the steroid injections I had with Abi to mature tha babies lungs at 28 weeks so thats a weight off our mind. We've had a couple of scans since my last post and have found out we're expecting a little boy!


Abi has been really well, she is now fully potty/toilet trained and such a lovely little thing, she is so grown up and very excited about the baby being born, she is great at helping and runs round doing little errunds for me and loves it. Unfortunately Abi didn't get to start pre-school as the risk of her getting chicken pox while i'm on high dose steroids is too risky for me so she won't start now until September.


I fractured my ankle 2 weeks ago - just getting up of sofa didn't realise my leg was asleep and tried to walk ending up in a not very deignty heap on the floor!


This does make things rather tricky with a big bump using crutches and my oxygen lead trailing behind I think I am asking to do the other one!

I have uploaded a few pictures (still haven't found the lead but ed has shown me how to upload by bluetooth!) and hope someone actually reads this!