Almost totally in the clear.

Rian gets bigger, stronger and healthier every day. His PDA is gone and they've upped his feeding amounts and have started "non-nutritive" feedings, to help teach him how to nurse. Sounds like fun, except for Helen, as you mothers who have breast fed and pumped know, to pump for 20 minutes, then have to try to have a baby nurse for another 20 equals very tender areas.

They've made it even more interesting because the non-nutritive feeds are to happen twice a day, at least 3 hours apart. Oh, and they're scheduled for 1:30am, 4:30am, 7:30am, 10:30am, 1:30pm, 4:30pm, 7:30pm and 10:30pm. You pick 2 and eventually they'd like to move it up to 4 feedings. As it is, Helen's up every 3 hours pumping.

But things get tricky when you consider, we still have 3 kids and I work. So finding the times to go is getting difficult.

Ben goes to school @ 8
Josh goes to school @ 8:15
Josh gets out of school @ 12:00 (no school for Josh on Fridays)
Ben gets out of school @ 1:15 on mondays, 2:15 Tuesday - Friday
I normally see Rian in the evenings after the others are in bed.

So, the 7:30 would be possible, but I'd have to go to work almost an hour late. 10:30 is possible if we can find a sitter for Morgan every day and not have gone to the 7:30, 1:30 is out because of kids getting out of schools, 4:30 could work, I'd be able to watch the kids and maybe even start dinner, 7:30 is right before bedtime and occasionally I/We have rehearsal, then 10:30 is my time. I didn't even mention 1:30 and 4:30am... that's called sleep.

That about raps it up for the past few days. They're going to take him off of his oxygen soon and that's the last thing he's on, and it's very little at that.

He gets stronger every day.

As of right now, Rian is off of his ventilator, dopamine and antibiotics.

The only thing he's being treated for is Patent ductus arteriosus. It occurs when a blood vessel that is normal while a baby in the womb fails to close after the baby is born. The cause of the problem is not known and it affects one in 2000 babies that are born each year. It is more common in girls and much more common in premature infants.

It's treated with medication and should close in a couple of days. For more info, visit the link.

But the big news is he's off the ventilator. That means we can hold him now. Before the ventilator tubes were short and didn't allow us to hold him. Spending time with him was difficult as we could only place a hand on his head or feet. Helen would sing to him and I would go in the evenings and read Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

If he continues to progress like this, we may not be prepared at home, to have him at home. I need to set up the crib, get a new car seat, etc....

And now that the ventilator is out, we'll be able to hear him cry and make noises which weren't possible before. So for now, hearing him cry will be nice but only for now.

Pictures as promised!

Hooray for someone with a digital camera!

Helen's Uncle Keith and Aunt Johanna visited the hospital today and brought along their camera.

What you'll see in the pictures are Rian and all the equipment to monitor him, supply him with medication and everything else that a baby 8 weeks pre-mature needs.

He has two tubes in his mouth. The larger is the ventilator tube which goes straight this his lungs, the second goes to his tummy and was used to remove some of the gunk he swallowed during birth. On his foot is his pulse/blood pressure monitor, on his chest are his heart monitors, then lastly, his IV actually goes through his belly button.

Right now he's getting the royal treatment and has his own room, so as to avoid interaction with the commoners. Really, he just got lucky, pretty much every baby has the same equipment.

He's come & she's home.

On Thursday the 15th at 8pm, baby Rian Bassett was born. Weighing in at 3 lbs and 11 oz and being 17 inches long, he's bigger than everyone expected. It took a total of 10 minutes from when Helen felt "pressure" to him being delivered.

She called me at work just before 4pm. At first I had to check the number that called me because it sounded a lot like Ben when he's upset. When I asked Helen what was the matter, she told me "I'm in pain". So I asked, "Where? What kind of pain?", to which she replied "Does it matter?!"

And I was off, picked up the kids from one sitter after making arrangements with another, dropped them off and flew to the hospital. Well, flew is an overstatement as everyone on the freeway was intent on going 55 mph or so and every red light was against me.

Not long after I arrived, they examined her and found that she was only dilated to a 1. So Helen was given some morphine and Fentanyl for her contractions. They didn't want to give her a epidural as they didn't know how long it would be for the baby to come. So for roughly 3 hours she was in pain, more than normal deliveries as there was very little amniotic fluid to absorb the contractions.

Then right at Tribal Council for Survivor, everything happened at once. At 7:49, Helen told me she was feeling "pressure". The nurse was paged, came in, gave Helen an examine and exclaimed "The baby's ready", she zoomed from the room and paged the Doctor (for the 3rd time actually). In the mean time, Helen without any drugs was really feeling the pain and was being pretty vocal about it.

My job was clear, to not freak out. When Helen started yelling "He's com.... ing..." I started to get mildly concerned. I spoke softly and gently to her, reminding her to breath which was normally responded by her saying "I... can't.... bre.... ath..." Then there was more "He's... com... ing...", "Yes, we know, the doctor's coming, just keep breathing"... and the circle continued.

We found out later that when the nurse examined Helen, she was 8 cm dilated and the baby was 90% effaced. For you non-technical/Men types, that means he was literally coming. Our doctor didn't actually make it to the room in time. They grabbed another doctor that happened to be in the hallway, even then, he only had enough time to say "Okay, it's time to push", (btw, he hadn't had time to put gloves on yet). Helen asked "I can push?", yup, she pushed and out came baby.

He was quickly taken to the other side of the room where he was stabilized and monitored while they finished working on Helen. After the baby was out, Helen shared with the room how much better she felt already and started making jokes. I swear, that is 100% historically accurate.

The baby was then whisked to the new born intensive care unit, where he'll spend the next 8 weeks. It wasn't until we went to the nicu that we found out his size.

Helen's doing fine and came home last night for the first time in 5 weeks and we'll gradually let her be on her feet more, since she's been on bed rest since the 23rd of December.

Baby is also doing well. They're really encouraged with his size, however as most 32 week olds, his lungs are underdeveloped. Even more so because of the lack of amniotic fluid. So he's on several different medications already, steroids and medication for his lungs, antibiotics, and medication to even out his blood pressure.

In 10 days they will do an ultrasound on his head to check for brain bleeds which can be fatal. So while things are and have gone well, we're not out of the woods yet. Once we jump the brain bleed and lung development hurdles, we'll be home free!

Oh yeah, you might be interested to know what he looks like. Well, for 1, he's bright pink with a lot of hair the color of Helen's and Ben's. He's got a perfect little nose and 10 fingers and toes. We'll have pictures shortly!

As a side note, we've decided to theme his stuff in tigers. Josh really wanted a little tiger so... if you happen to see tiger blankets, toys, clothes etc, let us know, we will also be needing a new car seat and a high chair eventually but that's 8 weeks away.

And so you know the name Rian (pronounced Ryan, duh) means Little King and the name Bassett means Little Man. We thought both were appropriate as he's little and it completes our circle.

We have:
Benjamin Jada
Joshua Michael
Morgan Richelle
Rian Bassett