Wednesday, Aug. 6: Luke status

~Written by big papa Karl
It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions since Luke was born. I didn’t get to hold him for more than 5 minutes when he was taken away to the NICU. The first night we went to see him he was doing okay, but then he needed to have an IV and receive antibiotics. They did a C-pap (which means Continuous Positive airway pressure - a method of respiratory ventilation ). They started with this method to see if they could prevent the need for intubation, but it didn’t work so he had to have the tubes. He was put on a respirator, hooked up by a tube going down from his mouth into his lungs (orotracheal intubation), in order to help him breathe. However, we found out today that his lungs were not opening properly to let out his carbon dioxide, so the CO2 began to build up. The doctors handled it well, though, providing him with the enzyme, Surfactin and increasing the rate of respiration. The parents, however, not so much…we have been anxious, worried, scared, exhausted and all this terminology has been like a spinning whirlpool of words and letters (CO2, O2, RDS, GPS, oh wait, that’s not….):


We had a lot of visitors to help us through this rough spell. Lulu’s sister and mother got here the day of the birth and have been a great help in taking care of Carlita. They brought Carlita to visit with Lulu and meet Luke today, but the experience was a little overwhelming for everybody. Karl picked Carlita up from day care and the plan was to meet everyone back at Lulu’s room. However, when we got there, the room was deserted and the nurses told us Lulu had gone with Samanta and Sami (colleagues and friends from work) to visit the baby. Daddy got Carlita to put on her “I’m the Big Sister” shirt, but then Karl made the not so wise choice of taking Carlita down to the NICU also (hello—lots of babies on machines, mommy in wheelchair, doctors, nurses running around—daddy was not using his noggin very well), and of course Carlita was startled, overwhelmed and scared. She allowed daddy to pick her up and look at Luke, but I don’t think she understood that it was Luke; then she asked mommy to pick her up and carry her, and mommy of course was in a wheelchair and couldn’t pick her up, so she had a meltdown in the middle of the NICU and down the hallway back to the room. Then, there were all these people packed together in lulu’s room, so she continued to be fussy for a while. But thank goodness Sandra’s baby Sofia was there. Gradually Carlita ate some food and played with Sofia, and calmed down. She even expressed a stunning revelation, after looking inquisitively at mommy’s tummy—“Luke not in mommy’s belly?” She continued to play with Sofia and family/friends for a while, but soon she ran out of steam, became cranky and had to leave. Daddy walked her out to Sandra’s car and helped put our car seat in Tia’s car. On the way, she wanted to hold Sofia’s hand, and when she could not, she began crying. When daddy put the car seat in the car, she was so excited to sit next to Sofia. She is going to be an amazing Big Sister!


Gradually Luke’s CO2 levels have come down and the doctors are now decreasing his level of extra oxygen and respiration (from the machine). We have been visiting him regularly, talking and reading to him, but he seems to be a very sensitive baby (whenever babies started crying or alarms went off, he would “desat,” which meant that his oxygen levels were dropping (his breathing was disregulated). So we have had to be careful to just sit, talk or read quietly next to him, and we haven’t been able to touch him as much as we’d like (much less hold him), so it has been really hard. However, the night nurse Alicia was great, telling us all about what they were doing with Luke, and she even allowed Lulu to take his temperature and Karl to change his diaper (meconium—it was so sticky and Karl was doing a good job of smearing it all over his butt—and then Luke pooped twice to give Karl more opportunity to practice his poop smearing skills): But his CO2 levels have dropped to the levels they want, and they have decreased the rate of respiration (and the oxygen level has stayed low), so we are hopeful that he will be able to come off the respirator soon.