Blake Heart Apt

  

A little over 4 months ago God blessed me once again with a sweet baby boy!

There he is- my monster baby 12lbs 4.6 oz!!!!!!

The night after I had Blake he was crying a lot, like he was in pain. I also noticed that he seemed to be breathing faster than he should be. I decided to call the nurse and let her know what was going on. She came in and took him down to the nursery to observe him for a little while. She came back later and told me that she felt something on his clavicle and thought that it may be broken. She put in an order for the Dr to get an x-ray done in the morning. Her thoughts were that he was breathing fast because of the pain that his clavicle was causing him. 

The next day they did the x-ray and it showed that he did indeed have a broken clavicle. (He was a BIG 'ol baby so no one was overly surprised by this news) They wrapped him tightly in a blanket to help him not move his arm and they started giving him Tylenol for pain. They decided that they were going to keep him in the NICU because of his breathing. They were convinced that his breathing difficulties were due to his clavicle pain. The figured that if they give him pain meds and kept him comfortable then his breathing would start to improve. 

*For those of you who are unaware, fast breathing rates in babies is a bad thing, mainly when they eat. I guess it is very easy for them to suck the milk down the wrong tube and it end up in their lungs. Which would cause them to get very sick, very quickly and could possibly cause death. So better to be safe than sorry- he stayed in the NICU. 

Blake 6 days old in NICU.

Unfortunately, even after getting him comfortable his breathing didn't start to improve at all :( 

They started to run all different kinds of tests on him. They did blood tests,

x-rays of his chest and ultrasounds of his heart.

This whole process was horrible. They put him on antibiotics for 48 hours just in case there was an infection of some kind. My heart broke every single time I saw him. At one point in time he had an IV in his head and that just killed this postpartum mama to see, let me tell you! There is nothing harder than sitting there watching my poor helpless baby being poked at or seeing him hooked up to all of those machines and know there is nothing that I could do to help him. 

*This was not the first time I have had to see one of my babies hooked up to machines.

Vanessa was in the NICU for a week with breathing problems and Mariela was in the pediatric ICU with meningitis. IT IS NEVER EASY!

Anyways, after running lots of test they noticed a hole in the middle muscle of his heart. They did not seem overly worried about it because of the location that it was in. They told he that the muscles around it should cause it to close up on its own. They scheduled me a follow up appointment for when he was four months old just to make sure. 

Now, even though they were not worried about it, hearing that there is something wrong with your son's heart doesn't really  go over well! I seriously was a total mess! 

He ended up staying in the NICU until he was 12 days old. They never had a real diagnosis of why he was breathing fast and eventually just let him come home. (It was most likely just related to his size.) That week and a half was very difficult! My heart was broken and being ripped between two places. I wanted to be with Blake, but I also had 5 other kids at home that I wanted to see. I just wanted my baby to come home so things could be normal again. It was a very stressful situation and caused fighting and misunderstandings between some family members and Michael and I.

 

 Michael was SO good to me when I was on my emotional roller coaster and I couldn't have made it through all of this without him being my rock and standing by my side. He never thought of himself during that time, only how he could help me get though it! I am so blessed to have him as a husband :)

 

 

Blake finally came home at 12 days old :)

 Blake's first bath

Bringing him home wasn't easy either. Every little noise he made while he slept would scare me and I would wake up to check to make sure he was ok. He always was, but as a mom I still panicked. 

We just continued to live day to day and eventually my nerves settled down and I didn't freak at every noise he made....... Just a few......

 

Over the next few weeks his breathing got better and I was able to relax.

 

 

He is was 4 months old on the 27th of August and he is just as perfect as can be!!!!

Doing what he does best, taking up the whole couch to himself for a nap :)

4 months later (9/10/12) we went back for our follow up visit to the cardiologist and he had another ultrasound done. The Dr said he doesn't see or hear any signs of the hole! Praise God! That was the best news ever!!!

My sweet "little" baby weighed in at a whopping 18 pound 11.6 oz that day :) 

I think he is doing pretty well, don't you?

4 months old and as healthy as can be!!!

Thank you Lord, for keeping my little buddy safe :)