February 13: It's Dad's Turn!

Since Nicole has been sick for the past few days and hasn't been able to visit Ethan, this is Jon and I'll be posting for the first time today. My beautiful wife has done a great job with her writing and I have a tough act to follow.


Yesterday was the first time I was able to hold Ethan and the moment the nurse handed him to me, my heart melted. I know he had no idea what he was doing, but he was wide eyed and just kept looking up at me. While I was holding Ethan, his neonatal doctor Nana stopped by to give me the daily update. As usual, Ethan impresses the doctors and she honestly told me that they have no medical explanation to why he is doing so well considering his situation. Although, the doctor did give a bit of very disturbing news. I think Nicole has mentioned that one of Ethan's tests indicated bacteria in his urine but the doctors were not sure if the sample was contaminated during collection. Well, yesterday they finally got the catheter in!@! Seriously, his foot is only 1 1/2 inches long, you do the math! It's a good thing Ethan won't remember all of this! Other than this little drama, Ethan is doing just fine and the results from the testing are not back yet.


I decided to include a photo of the monitor than shows all of Ethan's stats. This is the monitor that we are constantly staring at and checking his signs. The top green zig zag line is Ethan's heart rate, the white line in the middle is respiration rate per minute and the bottom blue line is his oxygen saturation level. When he has his little breathing episodes, the Brady's, his respiration rate is the first to drop, followed by his heart rate and then his oxygen level dips, ...and then the bells start going off! Right now, the breathing episodes he has are normal for his age considering the little guy isn't supposed to be born for another 2 months!

Today I held Ethan for an hour and a half and enjoyed every minute of it. Again the nurses praise Ethan and told me how cute he is. Really, there's no need to tell me that, how could he be anything but cute when he has a mother like Nicole! Unfortunately, Nicole is still sick and I really hope she can make it to the hospital tomorrow. I know she's having Ethan withdrawal symptoms. Yesterday Ethan’s weight was 930 grams and last nights weight was 920 grams. I'm writing this at 11:30pm and just realized that they weighed him at 11pm so I'm calling to get the latest weight update! I'm on hold. And the new weight is...drum roll please...960 grams or 2 pounds, 3 ounces! Again, Ethan is doing great and continues to amaze us.

Well, daddy needs to try to get some sleep. While I can't keep up with Nicole's expert blogging techniques, I'll try to post more often. Again, Nicole and I thank everyone for all the love and support that we have received. The past 3 weeks have been the greatest of my life and Ethan has made me thankful for every moment.