Jan 29th - Day 6 in the NICU

On Sunday, January 29th, we walked in to see that Will was off the CPAP and down to just a nasal cannula! What a wonderful surprise!! We expected him to be on the CPAP for several days... way to go, Little Guy!

After Mass, we also got to give him his first bath! (A nurse had washed his hair earlier in the week, but he hadn't had a full-out bath yet.) It was a swaddle bath, but it was awesome nonetheless! He did pretty well with it for the most part.

Before getting him dressed for the first time, I had to take some photos in his Tech hat on his new Texas Tech sheets! Our Little Red Raider:

Wearing clothes for the first time:

Snuggling with Dada:

And with Mama:

What a BIG weekend Will has had! We have SO much to be thankful for... Thank you again for all the love, prayers, and support! God has definitely blessed our family with this sweet little life -- we can't wait to bring him home!

Love,
Abby, Andy, John, Will, and Wayne-Dog :)

Jan 28th - Day 5 in the NICU

While visiting Will on Saturday morning, we were surprised (and excited!) when Dr. Sparks explained that Will would be extubated later that morning! He was getting off the ventilator!!! We knew the game-plan was to transition from the vent back to the bubble cpap, then the nasal cannula, and eventually room air only... we were just under the impression that it would take several more days before starting the weaning process! Way to go, Will!

One last look of our little man on the vent:

His new look! When on the cpap, he swallows lots of bubbles and occasionally needs to be suctioned. It turns him into quite the bubble machine. :)

His tiny paci:

Grampa got to feed Will today, too. He is now up to 1/2 an ounce at each feeding!
So glad you got to come visit, Gramps! (He had to head back home on Sunday.)

Passed out with a full belly! Goodnight, sweetheart! You had such a big day today -- Praise God! We are so proud of you, Will!

Love,
Abby, Andy, John, Will, and Wayne-Dog :)

Favorite Photo Friday - Snapshot #38

While I haven't done an FPF post since November, I really wanted to start that back up this week - especially because all my posts have focused on our sweet Baby Will! I wanted to include more on John in this post...

He has been SO sweet!!! Gramma has been staying with us and taking care of him all day (and many nights!) while Andy is at work and I am at the hospital with Will. We are so very, very grateful for Gramma - she is a SAINT! :) :) John has been LOVING his time with Gramma too, and she says he has been SO good and such a sweetie! Though we know he still has no idea of what becoming a Big Brother is really all about, he'll learn quickly as soon as Baby Brother comes home (hopefully next week *fingers crossed*)! Here are a few favorites of John recently...

Taking a nap while I was still in the hospital after Will's delivery:

Cheese!!

I took this photo one afternoon this week during John's nap. I just couldn't believe how big he's grown...

...So afterwards, I looked up an old photo of him from his first day home -- look how tiny he was! It's hard to believe how quickly he's grown up!

What a sweetheart!

Ok, so there's a story on this one... On John's yogurt cup, there's a picture of Dora the Explorer. John has never seen the show and I don't think he had seen her anywhere before. But when he spotted that beauty on the side of his yogurt cup, it was love at first sight! Haha, he was absolutely SMITTEN!! :)

Oooooooh John, it's your girlfriend Dora!!!

Bathtime!

Passed out with his "circles." These are just empty Icebreaker Sours containers, but John is obsessed!? Can't go anywhere (even to bed for a nap!) without his circles! :)

And a few favorites of little brother from the week --
Our little Red Raider!

The first smile I caught on camera!!

Our all-time favorite of Will so far! This was right after trying to bottle feed for the first time:

Well that's it! Sorry for the picture over-load, but I figured it was ok since I hadn't posted a "Favorite Photo Friday" since November! :) Y'all have a great weekend and God bless!

Love,
Abby, Andy, John, Will, and Wayne-Dog :)

Jan 27th - Day 4 in the NICU

On Day 4, there were two big events -- Dada finally got to hold Will, and Grampa drove into town to meet Will for the first time! Even at delivery, Andy didn't get to hold Will -- so he was looking forward to this all week. He had returned to work on Friday, but he was definitely able to leave the office mid-day to come up to the hospital for THIS!

Dada and Will! (He's smiling behind that mask!)

The family minus John and Wayne-Dog:

Later that afternoon, Grampa arrived! He drove up for the weekend to see us. Will says, "Hi Gramps!"

Now that William Mark has met both of his grandfathers, he has also officially met his two namesakes -- Grampa (William is his middle name) and Pa (Mark is his first name).

Regarding his health, Will was continuing to improve. He required a lower rate and pressure on his ventilator at this time, and we were headed into the weekend with high hopes that he may get off the vent by Monday.

Love,
Abby, Andy, John, Will, and Wayne-Dog :)

Jan 26th - Day 3 in the NICU

On Thursday the 26th, Will finally got to start eating! Through an OG (oral-gastric)/feeding tube, he took 2cc of pumped breastmilk at each feeding (3 hours increments)! We got to feed him by holding the little syringe of milk above him, allowing it to drip down into his tummy. He also continued to get the TPN through his IV to make sure he got all the nutrition he needed. What a big boy!

In addition to eating, Will had quite an eventful day! Pinkie and Pa flew into town from Houston to meet their newest grandson!


Like the rest of us, I think they're pretty smitten. ;) We're just so grateful they were able to make a quick trip (they flew out the next morn) to see Will. It was such a treat for us to see them, and we even got the Hefferly family together for pizza at our house that night, as Mike, Casey, and the kids were also in town. I was a little late to dinner, though, because...

I got to hold him!!!!!!! For the first time since his delivery, I was allowed to hold my sweet baby boy!!! Let me tell you, it makes a world of difference to a new mom to be able to hold her child!
What a wonderful bonding experience it was -- I was a whole new woman after that! ;) And I even got to do kangaroo care (skin-to-skin... they just tucked him right into my shirt)! And since he was on the vent, they just taped all of his tubes/equipment right to me. Ah, it was such a sweet blessing to snuggle my little miracle!

One Happy Mama!!!

He also started sun-bathing in the bili lights/phototherapy because he was getting jaundiced. His bilirubin was too high, so they gave him some sah-weet sunshades to wear (velcroed to his head - you may have noticed the white ovals stuck to his temples in other photos... that's where his shades are attached).

Dada getting to feed Will for the first time. This is the life -- sun-bathing and getting served a nice drink (nevermind all the crazy tubes and medical equipment!)! He just needs a little umbrella in that drink! ;)

Well for Day 3, it was quite an eventful one! Each day, Will continues to improve and gain strength. God is truly watching over him and showing us His great power through this tiny little guy! :) Thank you for your continued prayers!

Love,
Abby, Andy, John, Will, and Wayne-Dog :)

Jan 25th - Day 2 in the NICU

On Wednesday, January 25th, we woke up to a phone call from Will's neonatologist, Dr. Sparks. He called to update us that over night, Will had to be placed on a ventilator because his breathing was still too labored and his O2 sats were too low. He was also given a central line through his umbilical cord for more frequent and accurate blood draws/labs, and to enable them to give him intravenous nutrition (TPN, or Total Parenteral Nutrition, or as Dr. Sparks calls it, "a hamburger in a bag.") :) While the ventilator seemed really scary, once we saw him we immediately knew it was what he truly needed. He wasn't working near as hard to breath! We completely trust his doctor, it's just scary to hear your little one is on the vent!

Speaking of his doctor, Dr. Sparks is AWESOME! He has fantastic bedside manner and cares so much for his patients and their parents. He is excellent at explaining everything, and even took time to sit down and draw out a diagram to explain Will's heart defect and pulmonary hypertension. It was especially helpful to Andy, who doesn't have a medical background. But for both of us, we so appreciated his time and effort. It's truly a blessing that Dr. Sparks happened to be the neonatologist on call the morning Will was born! What a Godsend! :)
Holding Dada's finger:

To further explain Will's condition, he has a PDA - a Patent Ductus Arteriosus - which is an open duct that allows blood to bypass the lungs while in utero. Once born, it should close on its own. An echocardiogram showed that Will's PDA was moderate in size and was still open/not shrinking as it should within a couple days. He also had pulmonary hypertension (the blood pressure in his lungs was high, causing blood to want to take the "easy" low-pressure route via the PDA and not go to the lungs for oxygenation). This also caused the right side of his heart to grow faster than it should, since it had to work harder to pump blood to the lungs. The pulmonary hypertension could be a result of the PDA or even pneumonia, so he was also treated with antibiotics. While the PDA is still open (we will have another echo sometime this week), the pulmonary hypertension has resolved.

One concerned but grateful Mama:

Besides Will being placed on the vent on Day 2, I was was discharged from the hospital. I felt a lot better after this delivery than the first, but it sure felt wrong to leave the hospital without my baby!! :( It was sort of a "non-event" when we left that evening... but we're just thankful for a healthy Mama and a relatively healthy baby! The care in the NICU is obviously what he needs, it was just difficult to come home without our sweet Will!

Love,
Abby, Andy, John, Will, and Wayne-Dog :)

Jan 24th - Day 1 in the NICU

As you probably know, we welcomed sweet baby Will into our family on January 24th!! If you read my last blog post, it may have been obvious that I wrote it while quite sleep deprived... I'm not even sure if I made it clear that he's been in the NICU since birth! But because he has had such an eventful first week, I wanted to make a separate post for each day in the NICU -- mostly to document it for our family, but also to share details of his progress with family and friends who might be interested. So to begin, let's start with his BIRTH day, January 24th:

Because Will was a month early (born at 35 1/2 weeks; due Feb 24th), he was initially taken to the Neonatal ICU (NICU) for precautionary reasons. While he cried plenty in the delivery room, making it seem as though his lungs were plenty developed, he ended up having retractions and difficulty breathing. So they put him on a nasal cannula:


... Then later he was put on a bubble CPAP because the nasal cannula was not enough.

Will with his Dada:

And with Mama:

Andy and I were able to come visit Will throughout the day, but could not hold him yet. I was lucky enough to hold him for a moment immediately after delivery, but Andy did not get the opportunity yet. This was a very different delivery than our first, as our parents were all out of town and I actually went into full out labor! (With John, 40 weeks came and went, then we were induced). Even though it was somewhat scary, we knew Will was in GREAT hands and that we could (and must!) trust in God's plans. We, and especially Will, have been lifted up in prayer by so many friends and family members! We are eternally grateful, as the many prayers, rosaries, and Mass intentions were definitely heard and felt -- over the past week Will has improved by leaps and bounds! But back to the day-by-day updates...

Our sweet Will:
And his tiny feet!

Late that night my mom arrived -- she flew in all the way from Montana! She had teased me about waiting until after Feb 1st (when she would be back home in Houston), and I just laughed it off -- who knew we'd have him a month early!? So when she got to the hospital around 11pm, I took her down to the NICU to proudly introduce her to her newest grandson! :) It meant so much to have her here, and since then she has been staying with us and helping out a TON. She's been watching John and allowing me to spend more time up at the NICU with Will, plus cooking and cleaning... Gramma, we cannot THANK YOU enough!!! :)

Will meeting his Gramma for the first time:

Love,
Abby, Andy, John, Will, and Wayne-Dog