Saturday 4:30am {Pee, Poop & other fun stuff}

Hi!

So many things have been going on here!!!

Jaxton’s ph level is now 7.32   🙂 ideal is 7.4 which is an excellent change from his original 7.02 ph!

They  adjusted his ventalator and he is handeling the change well according to the respatory therapist. He originally was on 100% oxygen and now he is at 85%. I think they are trying to get him to room axygen which is like 25% (don’t quote me on that… there are to many numbers around here to remember them all)

Earlier today the doctor was concerned about how little he was peeing and then he surprised us all and has peed off the charts good! He only needs 2 oz minimum an hour and he has consistantly done 23 oz in 3 hours!

Crystal his nurse JUST told me that he has been absorbing ALL 6 ml of the colostrom which he had trouble doing with the formula. I’m sooooo thrilled!!! I have been producing twice as much as he needs at this point which everyone is so surprised considering the lack of sleep, emotional stress and having gone through the pain of a surgery. He just makes me soooo happy I think my body wants to reward him any way I can.

I have been loving and flirting with him this whole time. Kissing every sweet little part of him and whispering prayers and I love you’s. He has been tugging at my heart strings and making me fall more and more in love with him! He decided to flirt back with me and opened his eyes about 6 times and has been holding my finger.

I am loving towel bathing him, giving massages and lotion rub downs. He loves his feet and legs rubbed. He is responding to our touch which makes us smile!

I have decided that there is nothing better than seeing my hubby kiss, love and hold our sons. I have fallen even more in love with Josh just being so in love with our boys.

Jake was able to visit today and I loved seeing him running around and being his fun self. He was being so funny it was almost too painful to be around because it was making my incision hurt every time I laughed. I think he is starting to hint at wanting to be potty trained. Apparently he has been taking off his diaper A LOT and even went pee in the potty once on his own! (Big thanks to the Niccum family for putting up with the diaper situation! sorry you had the luxury of dealing with that.)

My heart is so full right now for Josh, Jake and Jaxton but for you all, the nursing staff and especially my friends and family. I’d like to work on a post here soon about how much you all have touched my life! It may take me a while to write because I have soooo much to say.

Right now Daddy is holding Big Jax and I’m due for a nap!

I am so thankful to God, Jaxton’s creator, for his tenderness and mercy with our family. He has been blessing us abundantly in so many ways. I’m almost moved to tears at how he has been so gentle with our hearts and answering prayers and questions right away. We have been able to pray over Jaxton and read scripture to him reminding him of how great and wonderful the LORD is! Father God… I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

We could use prayer for the decisions about his nutrition intake, breathing on his own, NO Trisomy in his DNA and extra prayers for his heart!

Thank You #823

Thank you Becky & April for being amazingly wonderful NICU nurses! I love you both. You inspire me beyond belief and keep up the great work! Your gentle spirits and kind hearts are what makes you so incredibly special. I adore you two!

This post  is in honor of my friends who are nurses in the NICU for CHOC hospital in O.C. California! I have had conversations with both of them and they said they didn’t know anyone personally that has gone through what we are going through so I thought i’d give them a little behind the scene tour of our journey before our precious baby get to a nurse like them.

Step 1- Talk about when to try to get pregnant

Step 2- Start taking prenatal vitamins

Step 3- Buy Ovulation Predictors

Step 4- Try to conceive

Step 5- Negative pregnancy test

Step 6-9 repeat steps 3-5

Steps 10-13- repeat steps 3-5

Steps 14-17- repeat steps 3-5 (sometimes this takes years!)

Step 18- *YAY* Positive pregnancy test!!!

Step 19- Hug, cry and talk about the future

Step 20- figure out baby’s birthday

Step 21- Tell Best Friend and Immediate family

Step 22- Tell a few more acquaintances because your too excited to hold it in

Step 23- 1st ultrasound to hear the heartbeat

Step 24- 12 weeks gestation – Announce the Baby to everyone and update FaceBook status along with 1st ultrasound picture  🙂

Step 25- Start thinking of a name

Step 26- 18 weeks gestation – 2nd Ultrasound… Find out gender… Something is not right with the baby. Maybe Down Syndrome.

Step 27- Panic, Tears, Hysteric balling, Forgetting how to breath and lots of begging to God.

Step 28- Long baths, rocking in the fetal position and waiting for next appointment

Step 29 – Another Ultrasound – Not Down Syndrome. even worse… Trisomy 13… Imminent death.

Step 30-42 Weakness, Desperation, Sadness, Panic, Tears and lots more Prayers/begging to God.

Step 43- Can only focus on the Word trisomy. It has become a staple in conversation

Step 44-89 Lots of Research/ Lots of questions and lots more Prayer

Step 90-107 Watching too many Youtube videos that make you breakdown and cry.

Step 108- 129 (20 weeks gestation) Rejoice for every kick & waiting for the next sign of life

Step 130- 144 (21 weeks gestation) Lots of talking to the baby, belly rubs, Jake kissing belly saying “Hi Brother”

…

…

* I don’t know these next steps because we aren’t there yet but I’d image more Desperation, Sadness, Panic, Tears and lots more Prayers/begging to God, but also Hope, Love, increased faith, Compassion, Joy and Peace!

Step #823 – YOU meet our baby for the first time in the NICU. From here on you will be the surrogate mothers. You are our representatives.  🙂   You are the most important person at this point in our baby’s life.

Here is my point… by the time our baby actually makes it to the NICU we have had a world of chaos.

We have had to go through sitting through multiple doctors telling us he won’t make it, there are other options for people in our situation, even IF he made it full term he wouldn’t live long – it’s really tough to hear. I actually have a hard time sitting through an ultrasound without crying because I feel like I am getting to know him better each time I see a foot or something. Then a heartbreaking reality that I may never KNOW this little boy that I am falling in love with is too much to keep in and I cry right in front of the technician and everyone. I don’t care what they think. It’s my personal time with my baby and they just happen to be in the room.

Please know when you are taking care of some of God’s most precious gifts that the parents may have been dreading the day of delivery and yet anticipating it so badly. Us Trisomy mothers know that the moment the baby leaves our womb his chances of dying sky-rocket! We may have only 10 minutes or 10 days (if we are lucky – The average is 2.5 days) We want so badly to meet them and hold them and not let them out of our arms, but even now months away from delivery I am preparing myself to rock my precious boy to death instead of to sleep. I may have to give him back. I have spent time researching and time crying long before you could ever imagine. It will be a long road for us just anticipating that he will make it full term. T13 parents don’t have the luxury of planning a baby shower or even decorating a nursery. Am I bringing an outfit to the hospital to take him home in or to bury him in? We instead have to plan for a casket and a death certificate. I may leave the hospital with a box instead of my baby. The chances are my body will take longer to recover from delivery than he even lived and even weeks after he is gone. The pain will be continual and the reminder of the loss still there. I’m not sure what would be worse – him passing away in my womb and never getting to see him or kiss him or even know the moment he has passed so I could talk him through it or even rub my belly for his comfort OR to actually get the chance to look into his beautiful blue eyes, fall even more in love, sway with him and talk lovingly into his little ears to just have to watch him take his last breath then have to hand his lifeless body over to a mortuary’s assistant. At 18 weeks I was already preparing myself for the worst day of my life. (thus far) … and now all we can do is wait.

Thank you for taking care of the little ones we have grown to love so much. Even if we forget to personally thank you – WE MEAN IT! We love knowing there are wonderful loving people like you who love caring for our baby and who our fighting to keep them healthy. We love you for loving our baby! … THANK YOU! … THANK YOU! … THANK YOU!!!

Another Trisomy video: (Warning: don’t watch if you are sensitive to crying) It makes me cry  EVERY TIME!

Josh and I are actually praying for a non-Christian medical staff so that we can be the light that we always pray to get an opportunity to be. I’m going to marvel in the way God works in their life through Jaxton! We are planning for him to have a full recovery and come home with us and Jake to be the best big brother ever!

823= Thinking of You

Much love from the Husmann Family