Ambrose Moved to Open Crib

On the Scale

Two days ago Ambrose was moved to an open crib. He had been maintaining his body temperature in the isolette for some time and the P.A. felt he would do well outside of it. So far he's handling it very well. One of the best things about it is that it provides easy access to hold him. The nurses have all said that Ambrose likes to be held now. A miracle in itself! He used to be so sensitive to the touch, but now nurses are telling us that they sometimes hold him for hours at a time. A Respiratory Therapist even told us that she held him last night for over an hour! She's not even his primary nurse. Well, it's great news for us.

His weight is currently 2390 grams (5lbs 4oz). Just about a 1/2 pound less than Charles. Ambrose is taking 40cc of breast milk with human milk fortifier @28cal every 3 hours. He should start to bulk up any day now. Just wait. He started the week at 4 liters per minute of O2, but has now been weaned to 3lpm.

The home front has been very difficult these last few weeks. We haven't had one day without someone being sick. John Paul had pink eye in both eyes and a cold on top of that. The week before he had strep throat. Little Josef has had one thing after another. He's been to the doctor 3 times in the last three weeks and to the pediatric urgent care (where after paying $100 and not being adequately seen, he was given an Otter Pop as a solution to his ailments!). He had an ear infection in both ears a few weeks ago. Then he had it again, but in only one ear. Now he has white blisters all over his tongue and mouth. Really ugly looking, too. He cries every time he eats. It's heartbreaking. Now the worst part. My poor (cute) wife has now picked up some of Josef's symptoms. She's sick, too, with sores on her tongue like him. She's doing the best she can at home taking care of Josef, Charles, and herself, but sometimes she's completely spent just taking care of Josef. Once we can get clear of all these illnesses, I think everything will go much more smoothly. We've had Charles home for almost two weeks and we've basically had to quarantine him from the rest of the family. Poor guy. To make matters worse, in the last month or two we transitioned Josef to a toddler bed in John Paul's room. Well, he's having a hard time staying in his own bed and wants to come back to Mommy and Daddy's room. Unfortunately, with him being sick and the baby in our room, he's had a really hard time adjusting. Sometimes, in addition to the crying and screaming, it takes up to two hours to get him to bed at night, then he's up every half hour or so after that. You can imagine how hard it's been on us, especially going to work on two hours of sleep. Please pray for little Josef. He's such a cute boy and we hate to see him so sick and sad at night. And if you're wondering how Charles is doing at night, besides all the straining and grunting to poop, he's doing wonderful! He sleeps great and wakes every few hours to eat. Sounds a lot like Gina, huh?

Today our John Paul turned four! We no longer have four kids under the age of four! He requested waffles this morning and he received them with candles and a gummy bear vitamin. He's pretty easy to please. His entire school sang Happy Birthday to him at their assembly first thing this morning. Unfortunately, possibly because Daddy let him stay up too late the night before, he was shy and embarrassed and cried in front of the whole school and throughout his birthday song! It was secretly really cute though, but we didn't let him know it was.


Ryan