Well, we made it through our first week with an infant in the NICU. It was a long and emotional week, but we survived. Not too much happened today, but we did have a few moments of excitement.
James had some blood drawn to test his blood gases. He told us that he didn’t like being pricked and showed us that he has feeling in his limbs by flinching and kicking the nurse a little bit. He also squeezed my finger and he was getting his blood drawn. Up until this point James hasn’t shown to much reaction to anything so this was BIG.
I was curious about what the blood gas test is, so I did a little research on it. Your red blood cells transport oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) throughout your body. Oxygen and carbon dioxide within the blood are known as blood gasses. The purpose of the blood gas test is to measure the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood. As blood passes through your lungs, oxygen flows into the blood, and carbon dioxide flows out of the blood and into the lungs. The blood gas test can be used to determine how well your lungs are able to move oxygen into the blood and remove carbon dioxide from the blood. Doctors can use this test to diagnose lung and breathing problems; determine if a person has a ruptured blood vessel, metabolic disease, or chemical poisoning; if there are kidney issues; or if a person has diabetes. Fortunately, the blood gas test came back normal.
If you read the Starting a Family: Take 2 post you may recall that when James was born he didn’t cry. Well, after a week of waiting, he finally cried! And then we cried. Stacy and I were both in shock. Even the nurse stopped typing whatever she was typing on the computer, looked over, and asked if that was James. When we told her that it was, she had this big smile on her face. Something as simple as a cry for any other baby would have been no big deal, but for James this was HUGE! With all of the poking and prodding over the past week, he finally let out a cry!
