Due Date...

Today is Kai's official due date, August 14th. The date that has been ingrained in my head since I found out I was pregnant with Kai. He's been in the hospital for 98 days and has exceeded everyone's expectations since Day 1. Since finding out about his brain bleed the first week of life (Friday the 13th is actually when we found out) Kai has been nothing but a "normal" newborn baby in my eyes.

He's had some road blocks along the way with breathing issues and eye surgery of course, but today he acts like he's fresh from the womb and everything else was all a dream. He's had the best help along the way and because of that he will continue to thrive and ultimately be "just fine". I tell him every time I see him, "You're okay huh, you're just fine, Bubba".

From this point on Kai's due date is considered a type of birth date in a way called his "adjusted age". So he's actually 3 months old now doctors will still use his adjusted age to compare with developmental milestones. So today will be day 1, it's weird, but I get it and one day it will all be a wash and he'll be just 3 or just 4, no extra age.

We are still waiting to hear back from the surgeons when they can schedule his surgery for his hernia. They've already looked at him and are hoping to get it done this Wednesday or Thursday and if all goes well with recovery come home Friday! We're really excited about his homecoming and his room is almost all ready to go.

We also had a nice little "care conference" with the Attending doctor the other day to recap all of Kai's past and present issues. He told us that the MRI Kai finally had showed exactly what he had expected, that there was just small bits of Iron left over from the bleed on both sides of the brain as it was just a bleed and not an active bleed and did not develop hydrocephalus from it. The left ventricle looked slightly bigger than the right and had shown a small amount of tissue to be affected. So he said that the part of tissue that was affected was the area that controls lower limbs so he may develop tightness in his right leg and we just have to watch his muscle tone with the development therapist and physical therapist. Other than that, we still have no way of knowing if Kai will have any other difficulties such as CP (Cerebral Palsy) or anything else due to the bleed.

The doctor talked about his lungs and that he did not need another chest xray and believes they are doing fine so they stopped the inhaled treatment he was getting and said all he needs to do is grow and get taller and obviously should have no problem doing that! The notes in the computer from the eye doctor say that everything is looking good and he is happy with the results. I still have yet to talk directly to the eye doctor as he is extremely busy and I should be hearing from him soon. He has been desat free, but has a few Bradycardia episodes here and there and I'm not sure what that means, if he'll need to come home with an Apnea monitor or not.

All-in-all, Kai has been doing really well and seems to be a happy baby, really! Next time I'm with him all day I will count how many times he smiles and post it! It's impressively a lot!

We also had a quick family visit this morning and of course Kirra insisted on holding him again. She actually does really well and is very sweet with him. He weighed in at 7lbs too! Getting nice and heavy for his big sister.

Kai 

14 weeks old