Lucas Update

Hello everyone!  Thank you so much for the thoughts and prayers everyone has sent for Lucas.  He is still in the NICU level 3, but he is doing much better than he was a few days ago.  Today, we were there while one of the nurses was assessing him and he opened his eyes to look around.  The nurse removed the hood for a little while so we could get some good pictures of him. 

Here is what we know: 
The ultrasound on his heart did indeed show a heart murmur.  It is considered an ASD (Atrial Septal Defect) which is essentially a murmur between the two upper chambers.  It could be worse and be a VSD which would have to be treated quite soon, but an ASD is less severe and there is nothing they could or would do about it right now.  Nevertheless, it is not what is causing his breathing problems. 

They took X-rays and the x-rays looked cloudy....like pnemonia.  They started him on antibiotics to treat an it in case the cultures they took grew something.  They were very doubtful it would because Lucas went from the operating room directly to the NICU, but they were being proactive.  They stopped the antibiotics after 72 hours because the cultures didn't grow anything. 
That means, it is not pnemonia. 

The x-rays also showed immature lungs which they think is Hyline Membrane Disease.  This is typically associated with preemies, but somehow, my little man has it.  It is nothing serious and it has to run it's course.  Typically, in 3 days it corrects itself, but if the baby is a preemie, it can be deadly.

What they think he has is TTN (Transient Tachypnea).  It is essentially a respiratory problem that has to run it's course.  Sometimes, it clears up in a matter of hours and sometimes, it takes days or weeks.  

Lucas is doing very well today.  The other day, he got up to 88% oxygen and they had to move him to NICU level 3 and we were very scared.  I am now home from the hospital and I had to leave him there, but I know he is in good hands.  I still have not gotten to hold him although I have gotten to change 2 diapers and those 2 diapers have been precious interaction.  He is almost on room air (21% oxygen) and if he can get to that and slow down his breathing (it's still very fast), he will get to remove the hood.  Today he started his first feeding of 10 mL formula via a feeding tube.  He does not like the feeding tube, but I honestly don't blame him.  Lily's was in her nose, but his is in his mouth and it is very awkward.  He has to work up to 8-2 oz bottles a day before we can take him home.

Keep sending the prayers to our little man.  He is getting stronger by the day and we pray that he continues to improve so we can bring our sweet little one home! 

Lucas Oliver Casey

Lucas Oliver Casey

May 26, 2011 

9:11 AM

8 lbs 11.9 oz

20" long 

He's here!  He's finally here!  

Our sweet little guy was born via c-section on Thursday, May 26 at 9:11 AM! 

 Lucas was scheduled to be delivered by c-section at 39 weeks because he was looking to be on the bigger side like his sister was.  The doctor didn't want to take a chance and have me go into labor too late into pregnancy with a larger child due to possibilities of a uterine rupture. 

 Lucas came out screaming his head off before his entire body was out of me.  When they took him to the side, they noticed that his O2 levels were low so they decided to put him under a hood to make sure he got enough oxygen.  Because of this, he would have to go to the NICU to be monitored for at least 6 hours.  Well, he's been there for like a day and a half.  His oxygen levels keep fluctuating and he isn't being very consistent.  They say his lungs look a little immature, but he is 39 weeks so they should be fine.  It is very common amongst white males to have respiratory problems at birth ESPECIALLY if he didn't go through the birth canal.  My doctor has been telling us this for awhile so hopefully it is just something that will fix itself soon.  They also hear a heart murmur.  They did an ultrasound this afternoon on his heart, but we will not get the results until later this evening or tomorrow morning.

 He looks just like his daddy!  Furry and all!

We love our sweet little man.  I am so sad that I haven't gotten to hold him, feed him or anything.  He hasn't even had his first bath yet! I just want to give him tons of loves and cuddles, but I must be patient and let him get better.  Please keep our beautiful little man in your prayers.  We want him to come home with us on Sunday, but that is completely in God's hands! 

Happy April!

Hello everyone!  Here is a small recap of April!  :)

What a busy month it has been!  I swear, it feels like we have been celebrating Easter since March!  Lots of Easter Egg hunts!  At least one every week!  Here are some of our pictures from this beautiful Easter!  

Lily and Brandon letting our butterflies go.  We grew them from itty bitty baby caterpillars and it was so much fun to watch them grow into beautiful butterflies.  Lily loved it and asked to see them every morning after breakfast. 

 Lots of pool fun!  We swam outside almost every weekend this month!  Lily also started swimming lessons the second week of April.  She is a water baby and definitely doesn't fear the water! 

Oh nursery!!!  

 

This thing is taking forever!  How nice it was when we had time on the weekends to work on fun things like this!  It now is almost complete, but this is what I looked at for most of April!

 Easter Egg-stravaganza in our neighborhood!  It is a mad house!  Over 1500 eggs gone in less than 1 minute and that was just the 0-3 age group!!!!!

Planting our plants.  Lily and I have a bunch of flowers growing, a pumpkin and a few watermelons. 

 Treehouse Tots Easter party. It was hosted in our neighborhood and was so much fun.  Lily and a bunch of the little ones didn't quite understand the confetti eggs, but they definitely had fun nonetheless! 

 Dying Easter Eggs on Good Friday.  In the above picture, Lily is "counting" the eggs.  She points to each one and makes the sounds like she is counting, but of course she's not.  She is just copying how we count. 

 Lots of playing going on around here.  Lily is finally discovering how to play by herself!  In these pictures, she is talking and giggling to the dog she is holding.  It's so cute!

 Kicking the ball.  She overshot it on this one, but she can run after her smaller ball and kick it pretty well! 

 

Easter morning! 

 Going out to hunt eggs in the backyard! 

 She found the cozy coupe the Easter bunny left her and forgot all about hunting eggs! 

 Beautiful morning! 

 8 1/2 months along and really trying to enjoy every minute of alone time I am getting with Lily!  It's hard with this big old belly, but I am going to miss these only child days! 

So much going on and I am trying to document everything with this awesome camera!  Here is the link to our picasa albums!  

Casey Family photo albums!

May 25th...sure, I guess.

Just a quick update...
We had our 34 week appointment on Wednesday and the doctor wants us to move the c-section date up to the to at the latest the 25th of May no longer will it be the 1st of June.  Apparently, due to Lucas' size, he doesn't want to chance me going into labor that late because if the labor was to stall with the big baby and the previous c-section, we are really taking some serious chances with a uterine rupture.  At this visit, I was measuring at 37 1/2 weeks.  I go again to the doctor on May 4th and then I will start my weekly visits. 
I'm really kinda bummed by this.  I really wanted to give him till at least the due date, but we are kinda playing with fire here and the last thing we need is for things to go badly. I love my big babies, but must they always be so difficult??!!


Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter! 

My little bitty big man

So last week, we went for our 32 week appointment which just so happened to be an ultrasound.  It is always so fun to see them moving around and it was kinda cool to see that he looked just like Lily did at her last ultrasound.  He got some good shots of the cross sections of Lucas' body so we got a pretty good idea about how big this kid is going to be.

A few things we learned yesterday....
Again, it looks like this will be another big baby and will probably be high 8 or 9 lbs come time of delivery.

He's got pretty long hair.  Brandon and I both agreed that it looked like way more than Lily had.  Now if this hair is red?  That is the question.  *hoping it is not....flashbacks of Problem Child*

Since he is bigger, we very well may end up going to or past the due date.  The section will be scheduled for June 1st.  If I go into labor before then, by all means, bring it.  Although, the labor will have to progress decently as they don't want to chance uterine rupture especially with him being a big kid.

Everything looks good and immature.  Which is a good sign.  I still have 2 months to go!

Happenings as of late...

Hello everyone!  Well, we are back from a whirlwind trip to Louisiana and we had a blast.  Lily and I flew in last Tuesday and then drove home with Brandon on Sunday.  The week was insanely chaotic.  I would have to spend a MONTH in Louisiana to see everyone.  That being said, we had an amazing time.  Of course, it was a lot of time visiting with family and getting Lily reacquainted with everyone. 

Lily sticking her finger in a crawfish hole at my mom's house. 

One of the most fun things was the Dohn/Hages wedding we went to on Friday night.  It was so much fun!  The wedding was in the Riverview Room on top of Jax Brewery and at the end of the night, we second lined from Jax Brewery (down 3 stories via escalator), to Bourbon street and stopped at the hotel Monteleone.  It was amazing!  By far the best night I have EVER had in New Orleans.  What started with about 100 people ended up with about 200 people at the end.  People were just joining the line and having a good ole time!  When we were about half way there, we were stopped by the NOPD for having a parade without a permit.  They told the mother of the groom (Mrs. Cheryl) that they were going to write her a ticket.  She asked them how much the fine was and they said $250.  She wrote them a check for $250 there on the spot and suddenly, the NOPD became our escort and stopped traffic and all!  Funny what money can do!  Absolutely insane! 

Anywho, it was a great time and we are so happy for Lindsay and Ricky!  

The next day, we had Baby Lucas' shower at PreNatal Pics in Mandeville.  It was more like a "sprinkle" this time around because it's the second kid and all, but it was so much fun!  The theme was "One Fish Two Fish" and of course, Candice went all out making it super cute!  

We got to see Baby Lucas and even got a little smile out of him.  Although, he was very stubborn about it.  Little man was facing backwards, really low, feet all the way up by his face and he was cuddling the placenta like it was going somewhere.  I guess I walked entirely too much the night before because he was so low, they had to do the sonogram all the way down by my c-section scar which is very odd.

  

Here is few pictures of our little man

And a smile...notice the placenta in the eye

 ...and another

 I had a doctor appointment on Wednesday when we got back and I told them about him being so low and they didn't seem concerned because his heartbeat was exactly were it was supposed to be.  They said it may have just been the way he was positioned.   My doctor is actually in Guatemala right now doing missionary work but those nurses are incredible and I know if it was an issue, they would have called the on call.

I gained 3 more pounds this time.  That brings the grand total to 9 lbs.  I am going to end up weighing less after I have him than I did before I got pregnant.  Note to self:  Running around after a toddler is no joke. 

For more pictures, visit our Picasa site!

Jenny's Picasa Photo Site!

Lucas Update

Hello all!  Sorry for the lapse in updates.  We have been keeping ourselves quite busy over here.  Yesterday, I went for Lucas' (the new baby) 28 week appointment and everything is going ok.  My weight gain this time around has been "very poor" (to quote the doctor) as I have only gained 6 lbs so far.  I can't remember how much I gained with Lily by this time, but I know it was more than 6 lbs. My fundal height is at 31.5 weeks though and the heartbeat is strong, so the doctor is not concerned.  He said that although the weight gain is poor, it is obvious that the baby is growing.  Anywho, of course, this is coming from chasing after Lily all day and I am much more active than I was the first go around. 

Lily....

This child is giving me a run for my money these days.  Her 6:30 wake-up time has slowly made it's way to 5 AM (after 30 previous minutes of crying) and that is unacceptable.  I can't do it.  I need  to sleep.  I get in bed after she goes to sleep, watch some tv, but it is very hard for me to go to bed before 10...most nights it is more like 11 that I end up falling asleep.  I just don't know what to do.  She usually gets in bed at 7, but doesn't fall asleep till 8...last night, it was 8:30. I am just so clueless on what to do. 

Anywho, lots of things have been happening as of recent.  Brandon started his new job at Chevron, we got a new couch, poured a backyard patio and are trying to get things organized around here before Lucas gets here.  Lily is growing like a weed and talking more and more everyday.  She is such a sweet and funny girl.  I think she will do fine once Lucas gets here, but it will definitely be a learning experience for all.  She is becoming more interested in babies.  She has finally started showing her baby doll love and affection and is very interested whenever there is a new baby around.  She fussed like crazy the other day because there was a mom at Kids In Action that was feeding her new baby a bottle.  I got to talking to the mom and just put Lily down so she could go play.  Well, she threw herself a nice little hissy fit because she wanted to watch the little baby eat.  

Anywho, we go for another ultrasound in 1 month...oh wait, we go to Prenatal Pics next week for our baby shower!  I'll post some pictures when we get home.  Hope everyone is well!