Having a pleasant day!

It was such a nice day we had the top down on the way to the hospital. Good fun.

After picking up some new bedding for Brinson we arrived at the hospital well rested.

We were pleasantly surprised to find Brin is having a good day. She is still at 25% and we can see poop at the end of the stoma which is good news.

Tonight we are eating with the Baldwins at Thai Spice in Village. I believe Kim's mom from cali is coming as well. Should be fun.

Technology is amazes me sometimes. I am bedside with Brin just watching her sleep, confirming golf with Mike and typing on the blog. All with my mobile....wow.

I will post some more pictures and videos as soon as blog will let me.

Had a good night...YEAH!

We checked on Brinson this am and she seems to have had a good night.

She is sating well, her glucose levels are still good and she peed a lot (40+ cc). Which is awesome, if you remember the last surgery....she did not pee for 3 days. Thanks to all the pee dancers the pee came and the rest is history.

Still no poop :(

Things went well today

After Lisa and I got to hold Brinson. We were on a high you could not believe.

Around ~630pm she had surgery on her gut. We talked to Dr. Minkes and he thinks the surgery went well. He pulled out the stoma and put in a rubber tube through the stoma to keep it from going back in. The rubber tube will stay in for 10 days.

We also found out she has a staph infection in her lungs. They are not too worried because antibiotics are on board and she is breathing quite well.

In fact, she was saturating O2 on 25% this afternoon and 24% after surgery this evening. He CO2 is pretty good and her glucose has been.

Since she was paralyzed for the surgery I was able to snap a few photos while she was still.
Compare these ring shots. The one on top is from March 7th. The one on bottom is from today. My wedding ring will no longer fit on her arm.


Look how small her fingers are....wow!

Videos from Brinson being held

Here is Mommy finally getting to hold her daughter after 4 weeks. Thanks Tiffani.

Pictures speak volumes

One of the best moments of our lives


Look at Mommie smile!!!!









Even Brinson liked to be held.














Another Family photo!!!














Even Nana got to see all the fun Brinson, Mommy and Daddy are having.



Wow what a moment. I can't even describe it.

Mommy holds Brinson (sort of)

They had to fix Brinson's bedding this evening, so Lisa got to hold her up while "Auntie Tiffani" changed the bedding. Brinson did so well for Mommy. Yeah team!










It's too loud ....SSSHHHHH!!!!

Blowing bubbles

Here is Brinson touching her head....DUH!

If you look closely you can see where they did the PDA surgery on her.


She is just so cute.










Brinson has been on her belly most of the day.....and according to a reliable source she does not like lying with her head to right.

Look at her eyebrows....pretty funny. She does not like that side.....at least today.








Here is a video of Brinson lying looking toward the right. Watch for the bubbles. I know it is gross....but yet cute at the same time......there is nothing gross about Brinson.



Here is where the picture of Grandfather taking Brinson's temperature would go.....but someone forgot to take the picture. Oppps.....Lisa.

Pointy Ears....

Well it seems Brinson has pointy ears. Very strange. I have not seen this before. I will have to examine them closer tonight when I go see her.

Lisa just sent me this picture via her mobile phone.

Brinson is going to have surgery tomorrow to bring the stoma out a little bit more. Hopefully this will allow her to poop.

Her nutrition analysis came back this morning and the doctor was quite surprised with the results. They turned out very good except the glucose levels being low.... The doctor is also quite happy with the weight gain from Monday to Thursday.

They did start her on antibiotics today just in case there is an infection. But they would have started it anyways with surgery being tomorrow.

Still good with CO2 as of 530am

I am off at training today......but I just got a partial update. So I thought I would tell the masses.

She has had 2 good ABGs in a row. That is good. Hopefully that will make a difference.

She was weighed last night and she is still less than 2 lbs......at 1lb and 15.4 oz or .2oz larger from Monday.

Lisa and Grandfather are heading up there now. So I will have more later.

4 weeks old but a not so good day

Yesterday was a very stressful day. Lisa and I stared the day with Brinson having several bad ABGs (blood gases) in a row. Apparently she is saturating oxygen fine, but is not ventilating. This means she is storing CO2 instead of releasing it. This is pretty common with preemies that have been on the vent for a while.

The good news is after coming up with a plan......her CO2 came down in the evening. So only time will tell if this will be a problem. The plan is to use a 5 day steroid trailing off each day......well see if we have to execute on the plan or not.

She is still doing pretty good with the milk....there has been some residual, but she is still digesting.

Still no poop, but we do have bowel sounds.....so it is going to happen unless..... They are talking about doing a catheter in the stoma to see if she has a plug or narrowing....which could prevent the poop.

Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers....especially focusing on getting her lungs better and Brinson having some poop!. If she has poop, we can begin feeding her more......and then if their is nutrition on board we can get more weight on her.....and can basically fix anything.

Thanks again for all your support......

Room with a View!

Well they have Brinson off the paralytic and fentanyl. Because she is off those meds, Brinson is kind of squirmy, but still able to saturate.....which is good. They took her off the meds above because they are thinking that it might be slowing her digestion.

They have started the morphine to be given every 4 hours. Her oxygenation labs have not been great and there is concern of an infection.

They have made an adjustment to her tube (pulled it out some) in hope that will correct the bad labs. If the tube is too deep than oxygen is not put evenly in both lungs.

They also increased her rate from 30bpm to 35bpm.

Also her BP is borderline......they are not sure why but will continue to monitor via the cuff every 2 hours....the ART line is still not working.....and is getting slow for blood draws.

I have a big work day tomorrow, so I have to get prepared after dinner. I think Nana is coming for a visit. BTW it is her Birthday on Thrusday. Also Lisa and I met 13 years ago tomorrow.


I will leave you with one photo from a few days ago. I call it "Room with a View." Here you see Cooper and Brinson getting some natural sunlight.

A few pictures and video...

had a good evening. She is resting this morning sitting on 29% oxygen. She has only had 2 paralytic doses in the last 24 hours (one at 930am yesterday and one at 9pm last night)


Here is Brinson getting weighed. Q:How many nurses does it take to weigh a preemie? A:Depends on the preemie. (BTW that answer works for any preemie and any question asked about the preemie)



Here is Lisa trying to calm down Brinson by providing some boundaries. Preemies love boundaries.....but it depends.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you they are talking about putting her in a baby condo. That is what we call the the incubator (covered isolette). Pretty cool eh. That would mean she is stable. They only have preemies that are unstable in the uncovered isolettes.

They did change the ET tube from 2.5 to 3. It made a big difference. She is able to recover much quicker.....and is still on not a lot of oxygen.

Mommy and Daddy with Brinson

Look how big she is!

Even after the weighing we were not so sure on how much she changed. So then I pulled out the monkey. Wow.....she is bigger. Just take a look for yourself.

The photo at the top is from 3/12, the photo at the bottom is from today. So since her birthday she has gained 3/4 lb and 1 inch.

Brinson is up 3/4lb

Brinson was weighed just a few minutes ago. She weighs 887g or 1lb 15oz.

Before weighing she was on 29% oxygen at 30 bpm.

All her vitals look good.

Because of the new weight class she is in they feel comfortable going to the larger ET tube. The current tube leaks quite a bit. So this should help her get better oxygen.

Nice evening with the Family!

Tonight we had a nice dinner with the family to celebrate my birthday. With all that has gone on over the last 6 weeks, our typical family dinner has gotten delayed. I want to thank everyone for the wonderful gifts.

Afterwards Nana, Grampa and Abuelo got to visit with Brinson. They found her much bigger. She is now about 745grams or 1lb 10oz....give or take. She is also about 12 1/2 inches long. The weight is approximate based on days outside. Tomorrow she will be 765 or 20grams heavier.

Here is a shot of my 2 favorite ladies. Lisa loves just humming and talking to Brinson. I just love capturing the moment as many times as I can.

Earlier in the day, Melinda stopped by. She is another of Lisa's favorite nurses. Thanks Melinda for providing such great care for our daughter.














Barbara is taking care of Brinson tonight. Lisa loves Barbara, because she too likes to fuss over Brinson. Thanks Barbara for all the great care you give her and again for the nice blankets. Here she is peeking in on Brinson.











We are all sad by the "new" NICU rule that we cannot go from bedside to bedside, so we are not able to go check on Zachary and Kim and Stephen cannot come get close to Brinson. While it's what is best for our kiddies, it still just makes us disappointed. They need to just hurry up and get well so they can play together!!! Zachary had a little setback and went from a nasal cannula back to CPAP but Kim tells us he is holding his own. He has been sleeping alot because of all the hard work he did while on the cannula. He's tough just like our little girl. You can follow Zachary's progress here.



I am going to leave you with a close up video of Brinson.

Waiting for Poop!!

Brinson had another restful night. They had to give her some more medicine to keep her still. She is making it about 6 hours before they have to give it again.

Her oxygen is at 28% and 30bpm. Not too shabby.

The ART line is still not working for BP. But they can still draw blood from it.

She is now digesting 2.4cc with no residual of mama's milk, so we are making progress. They are not planning to go up on her rate until she poops!. So we all prayed for pee, now lets pray for poop!!!