Colton Goes Cochlear: NICU Days

The first few weeks in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) are called the honeymoon period. Things go pretty well and stay stable, then the hard stuff hits.

It was a Sunday evening when we our honeymoon ended. We brought our oldest nephew in to see Colton and I was watching his monitor and noticed his sats going down. I called the nurse over and she tried a few things, but he didn’t look right. Soon the beeping started and they pulled out the bag. Another nurse came over, than another. I watched in shock as they bagged my son and tried to get him to breathe. They ushered us out of the room and we were able to watch through the glass. There is no word that can describe the feeling of watching them trying to resuscitate my son. They pulled out the ventilator tube and it was clogged. They put a new one down and he started to stabilize. We left the hospital with the assurance that it was a machine problem, not a baby problem.

But later that night it happened again. At 2 AM I called and spoke to the doctor and she told me that he was very sick. That he had an infection and he kept clogging up the tube with mucus and other gross stuff. He was being treated and was stable, but she again told me, “He is very sick.”

I prayed all night long that he would survive for me to see him again. I again told him that he was a fighter and he could do this. He remained stable, but during a heart echo they found a problem. His aorta was narrowing when they tried to close his PDA valve. It is a condition called Aortic Coarchtation. The PDA is open when the baby is in utero. It closes naturally when babies are born. When babies are born prematurely, sometimes the PDA doesn't close on its own. A lot of babies have to have it surgically closed. They tried some medicine to close Coltons, and it was working. But some of the muscle tissue had grown up into the aorta. So as the PDA closed, it started to close off the aorta as well. They quickly reversed the closure and gave him medicine to keep it open and Colton got his first car ride and we were transferred to Primary Children’s Hospital. Colton was going to need heart surgery.
Colton was not even 2 pounds and was only 2 weeks old. He is way too little to survive heart surgery.

We are playing a waiting game. It is all about finding a balance. Feeding him just enough to keep him growing, but with his PDA being kept open constantly, we never know how much blood is going to his gut and the risk of an infection in his intestines is too great to feed him too much.

Time passes slowly. The hospital has its own time warp and the time there goes too quickly. We are splitting our time between Colton and our 3 other boys at home. Always trying to find time to be at the NICU and understand what is going on with Colton. He is finally taken off the vent and we are excited to see his face. He is still so small and is growing slowly. Everything that they do to keep him alive has a negative side affect. So we are treating him for those as they come up. Every week the cardiologists meet to discuss Colton and every week we are told they want him bigger. At least 1200 grams (which is just over 2 lbs). Every night they weigh him and our whole life seems based on those numbers. Up and down they go. Waiting.

Colton being transferred down to Primary Children's Hospital.