click on any picture to see full size...

Born 7:52 on August 3rd by c-section (as planned). Mum and Jesse are fine. Jesse Taylor weighed 7'4 and is 19.5 inches long. His little lungs weren't originally up to it though, so he was put in Special Care with a tube in him to help him breath. The tube's out now though - he pulled it out Tuesday night and they did another blood gas test and found it was OK. So he's breathing on his own now.

Then Thursday was both a good day and a bad day! We started on a high when they pulled another tube out and put him under an oxygen "tent", so we could finally see his face. Then they discovered on an x-ray that he had a partially collapsed lung, which prompted an investigation that found a hole in his heart! To be precise, a moderate muscular Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD). See the sketch below that the cardiologist did for us!

Now we've seen more doctors and they've all given him the (relative) thumbs up. The last x-ray showed the collapsed lung has kind-of fixed itself (the air was re-absorbed by the body), so he doesn't need a chest tube. The cardiologist says that the heart will fix itself "in due course", and they don't need to treat it at all. So we ended Thursday on a high!

Friday they decided that he was still breathing too fast so they put him back onto the CPAP, which had an incredible effect - when we saw him later he was fast asleep and breathing around 30 times a minute - a record low for him. For contrast, on Thursday he was up to 120 breaths a minute (which is a bit worrying I can tell you!).

Saturday was even better, they took all oxygen away and we finally got to see his face with no tubes, and when we went in later Tara got to hold him for the first time. He opened his eyes for the first time too, so Tara was well happy! The nurse said that they're waiting for him to take enough milk. They won't discharge until he's having 8 bottles a day (1.5oz each). They started feeding him Saturday afternoon and increase it each feed. We started getting paperwork to fill in too, so we knew we're not far away.

With Monday came more good news. It seemed at one point that he would come home Tuesday, but a high level of drugs still in his system put off the last stage (a sleep study) for another day. Tara went in the afternoon and nursed him for the first time - he latched on straight away and stayed there for 20 minutes a side!

Wednesday he came home. No medicine, wires, tubes or monitors, no complications at all. Phew!

By the way (!) Tara's fine. She was up and in the wheelchair to see him 4 hours after the c-section - some things never change! She was tube free within 24 hours, and just on Motrin for pain relief. She says she feels no pain, just an aching back, and that's no worse than a day in front of the ironing board!

Maisy took the picture below when messing about with the camera...

Below is a picture we got on 16th April (20 weeks) - the day they also told us that he is a boy.

Apparently he's 6-8 inches long now.

Jesse the blob, 1.3mm at the beginning of January (6 weeks). He's the small white blob, not the big black one!

Back to top of page

Copyright © 1999-2008 James Shaw. All rights reserved.
A Clever Chaps Production