Day 7

They just took Cayden down to MRI. I saw him briefly before they took him. Daddy will be here soon. And we wait.

Update:
MRI is over. He was pretty chill according to Dr. Lewis. I'm pumping in the NICU pumping room while Daddy and Grammy are with Cayd. Then the meeting with the geneticist.

Update:
Waiting on the MRI results, probably won't have them until early next week. Cayden was breathing a teeny bit on his own, right before we met with Dr. Golabi. We haven't seen that for a bit, adn the nurse said she couldn't see it in his chest, but we got a little excited. Dr. Golabi, the geneticist, seems very, very good. She took a family history and we talked through what her gut feeling is. She thinks the contractures (his rigid, bent arms) are from early on in utero, and since his 18 week ultrasound pictures show his arm raised, it makes sense to think that he's been like that for awhile. She thinks there's a bigger picture going on, but we'll have to wait for the chromosomes to come back, hopefully next week.

We met with the neonatologist, Dr. Lewis. She continues to be concerned that he's not doing a lot of breathing on his own. She "challenged" him earlier and turned the vent down. Normally, the presence of CO2 would trigger the brain to breathe, but he didn't. She's also concerned that he's not moving, except when he startles and pulls his arms in. Her guess is that his brain just isn't working correctly. She encouraged us to hold his hands and gently move his arms, to try and relax them, and to stroke his chin in an attempt to get him to swallow. One theory for all my excess amniotic fluid is because Cayden wasn't swallowing. This is strange to us because his bladder was full at both ultrasounds (indicating he was swallowing), and the fluid only seems to have accumulated in such excess in the few weeks before his birth, as based on my fundal measurements.

So, no answers yet. We'll continue to wait and see and hope for a miracle.