Joey's Monday Update

Sunday night I was able to feed Joey his last bottle before bed - and change a nasty, nasty diaper.  With Melanie's birth, I was able to avoid all meconium diapers.  I was not so lucky this time, and it was also my first little-boy diaper.  He ate well, and I left him around 10:45pm.  I slept awesome; my first night of sleep since Thursday!  Jeff stayed home with Melanie (and his parents), and I got over 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep (gotta love formula feeding, which other people can do for you!!)

Monday morning, Jeff and I went in and were able to feed him and change another diaper; not quite as nasty as last night's.  During both feedings, he's been alert, it's fun to see his eyes!

While we were down this morning, we got an update on how Joey's doing, of course, and also understand more about the tests and results we're waiting for.  So, here we go...

First, the collapsed lung.  The third chest x-ray, which was performed this morning, continues to show shrinkage in the pocket of air continues to decrease.  The doctor seemed pretty convinced that it will be nonexistent soon.  He's not on oxygen anymore, and should just heal itself.

As for the possible infection....the tests they did yesterday were a CBC, which measures the risk of infection.  That is the one that came back slightly elevated, so they did a blood culture, which they watch for 48 hours.  If the culture grows, they know there is an infection.  In the meantime, they give the baby antibiotics as a precautionary measure.  In the last 24 hours, nothing has grown in this culture - and usually, if there is an infection, there are already signs of growth.  There is no sign of growth with Joey's culture.  There is still a chance it could grow, but we're hopeful he's in the clear.  We'll know more tomorow.

I just got the best perk of delivering at St. Vincent - my 15-minute massage!  So everyone is doing well, and we're enjoying the time with our new son!  Melanie woke up this morning with her first words of greeting for Jeff being "It's Joey's Daddy!!"  We're really excited for her to really meet him, not just through a window!  The hospital provides a birthday cake for all new babies; so we're having our celebration tonight with Melanie, complete with Elmo hats :)