Who's The Boss?

It is hard to believe but our Landon is 34 weeks today. This was the goal day that we wanted to get to when my water broke. Sometimes I have a hard time stopping myself from thinking about what it would be like if we had made it to this point. Would Landon have an easier time breathing? Would he not have had the gut problems? Why did he have to come so early? Usually when I start to think this way someone or something happens to remind me that everything is just as it should be. In this case my Aunt Bird reminded me that God only gives us what we can handle and God was just using his best resources when he choose Ryan and I to be Landon's parents.

This made me reflect on Landon's journey thus far. I used to wonder why God made Landon come so early, but now I realize it my crazy baby who wanted to come into this world early. God just choose parents who would appreciate a take charge kind of baby. Landon managed to show us this bossy part of his personality again this week. We began the week with the nonstop episodes of low heart rates and drops of the oxygen level in his blood. It was so hard to see him go through this. On top of that, he was in obvious distress from the ventilator tube in his throat and was constantly grabbing at the tube. I began to be concerned that he would pull the tube out himself. The doctors said that probably wouldn't happen and that even if it did they would just put a tube back in because he wasn't ready to breathe on his own yet.

His medical team came up with a plan to give him a 5 day course of steroids to try to bulk up his lungs enough to get him off of the ventilator. This treatment was not without risks and I was pretty leery of doing it. Dr. Stephen convinced me that he can't go to kindergarten with a vent, so we had to try what we could to get him off of it. It was decided that we would start the steroids at 9 pm on that night and I went to dinner at my parents house with this decision weighing heavily on my mind. Apparently Landon wasn't too keen on the steroid idea either because at 8pm I got a call that he had pulled his ventilator tube out himself! More importantly, HE WAS BREATHING ON HIS OWN!

Landon was once again letting us know that he walks his own path and knows what he wants. Everyone was so impressed with him, we had doctors and nurses coming to visit him for the last several days to see him off of the ventilator. He is now on a system know as CPAP which is basically an oxygen mask that provides some pressurized air to help him continue to breathe on his own. The mask looks a bit like an elephant nose, and Landon isn't particularly fond of it. Hopefully, if he continues to do well he will just be able to have nasal prongs to deliver oxygen in the next few weeks. How we will keeping him from pulling those out is another story.

The best part of his decision to take himself off of the ventilator is that his heart rate and oxygen levels have been so much better! He really did hate the vent and that may have been causing the ups and downs we had for the last week. Since he is doing so well from a breathing standpoint, he was also increased to getting full feeds of breast milk for his size! He has had no problems tolerating the food and will hopefully start to gain some weight with real food in his belly.

Although we will need to wait to bottle feed him until he gets onto the nasal prongs for his oxygen, he has demonstrated that he loves to suck even more now that the tube is gone. This is extremely important because many babies who were on a ventilator for as long as he was develop an oral aversion and don't want anything in their month. Like everything else in his short life, Landon seems to have the opposite problem and wants everything in his mouth from his hands to his binky to the cloth I use to clean off his lips. He is so good at sucking we decided to just try to give him a bottle with a tiny amount of milk in it and he had no problem drinking it. We can't wait until we can take out the feeding tube and bottle feed him on a daily basis!

Since he is doing so well with his feeding, the surgeons let us know we can start the countdown to when his stomach can be closed. They said depending on how quickly he grows, it can be anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks. It will probably be closer to the 8 weeks though because he is still a peanut and needs to get bigger. This is a little bit of a bummer since it takes us past his due date, but we want him to be in the best possible position before this surgery. In the meantime, we are very excited with his progress and the fact we can now hold him everyday since he is off the ventilator. Though he gives me a heart attack on a daily basis, we are so lucky to have a little boy with such personality. Maybe the question isn't why God choose to make him come so early, but how God thought we deserved to have such a special little guy.