What a snowy day!!

Well today is going to be fun, we are going to let Bryson play out in the blizzard!!! Just kidding, but this is his first time to get snowed in and as Courtney put it, probably his last as long as we live in Amarillo that is. So today is my day off and we are snowed in so we all get to snuggle and cuddle in our warm bed together today. Bryson is doing good, just hanging out and being a baby. I will put some more pictures on here for everyone to see, thanks for caring!!

First Doctors Visit

Today was Bryson's first doctors visit and it went pretty good. We finally got to weigh him today and he is now up to 5 pounds 12 ounces and is 18 and a half inches long. That means he has gained almost 2 pounds since birth and grown 2 and half inches. He is doing great!!

On a not so good note, his pediatrician wants to increase his caffeine per day because he has had some bradykardias. They have mostly been when he is eating but she wants to make sure that everything is ok. He is also slightly anemic which hopefully he will grow out of.

Things are going good at home. Our sleep is still at a minimum but hopefully that will start changing soon. We still have to wake him up and feed him at night but not quite as often. He has seen all of his grandparents and most of his great grandparents. Some time this week he should get to see two of his great great grandmas!!!! Other than that it is business as usual with Bryson. We are still not going to get him out in crowds for a while, especially with this cold snap coming at the end of this week. But thanks for your continued prayers for us and Bryson. Can't waith for him to meet everyone!!!

Bryson with his Cousins Maddox and Carmen

Doing Great!

Just wanted to do a little update. Chris is out of town on a mini-mission trip for the weekend. Courtney, Chris and Bryson are doing great. He has now been home a couple of days and everyone is being respectful of their visits. There have been a few people a day, but spaced just right so they could start establishing a schedule. Courtney's little cousin that is five just couldn't get over "how so tiny he is, but his fingers are so straight." Today when I took her back home that was the first thing she told her mom about the baby. She also said his hands were so-o-o-o soft. She thought he was pretty cool. As far as I know Bryson has not had any episodes of apnea. He goes to see his pediatrician later this week so maybe there will be an update on weight and length. Bryson still doesn't like to have his clothes changed and that is usually the only time you hear a peep out of him. I told Courtney he sounds like a cat meowing. He's so adorable though.

Home Sweet Home

We are all home... finally!! Bryson is enjoying his first day home, his grandma (Courtney's mom) and his aunt Mallory (Courtney's sister) got to come with us and help us bring him home. Mallory was too little to get to come see him in the hospital so this was her first time to get to see Bryson and she was so excited. So here we go, this is going to be a grand adventure. Thanks for al your prayers and support, we will still keep things updated here so everyone of Bryson's fans across the globe can know what is going on with our little guy. Please keep praying for him and us as we do this whole parenting thing.

Another Day

Well we didn't end up getting to bring Bryson home with us today either. The doctor wants to keep him there a little longer to monitor and see if the caffeine is doing what it is supposed to be doing. So far since he has been back on the caffeine Bryson has not had any apenea or brady kardia. That is what we were hoping for. Yesterday we got his monitor that will be coming home with us. It is loud and annoying and we don't like it at all. The only time it went off was when his leads (the sensors monitoring his heart rate and brething) were loose. Other than that we haven't heard anything from the monitor which is great. We have at least one more night ahead of us at the hospital but we don't know for sure about when we will get him home. Thanks for your prayers and thank you for checking in on us.

Some Pictures

Here are some pictures that we have taken the last couple of days of Bryson.... just thought we would share the cuteness!!!

Disapointing News

Well we had a rough night last night. Bryson has been having trouble with eating too fast and gagging and coughing which would cause his breathing to stop and his heart rate to drop. That is what the caffeine was used to prevent. Which is why he has been in the hospital the last 5 days to monitor for apnea with him off of the caffeine. Well last night he had a really bad apnea. It was not caused by eating, he just stopped breathing and his heart rate dropped. So the nurse practitioner came in this morning and told us they are going to put Bryson back on caffeine and send him home on the apnea monitor. But we will have to stay in the hospital tonight so we can get used to the monitor. So Bryson will not be coming home today, if everything goes well then tomorrow he should be coming home. Then when we got home today we found out our dogs ran away. So needless to say we have had a rough day. But the silver lining is that it is better for them to catch something wrong now then for us to bring him home and something bad happens. Pray that everything works out and he really does get to come home tomorrow.

Tired but Excited

Well he is at it again, he just won't go to sleep right now, oh well it is not a big deal, I mean who needs sleep right? He is taking after his dad in one way, he enjoys the soothing ambience of the television. Here is a picture of our little guy mesmerized by John Stewart on The Daily Show!

We are just biding our time until tomorrow when he will take his first car ride and meet Lily and Dawson and settle in at home. But before that can happen tomorrow afternoon Bryson gets his first eye exam. That is pretty exciting. So lets hope we can get some sleep tonight and get ready for full time Bryson.

1 night down!!

Everyone survived the first night. Bryson did good, except I think he already has his nights and days mixed up because he didn't want to go to sleep between 12:00 and 3:00 this morning. Other than that things are going good. Courtney was super mom last night. She was up with him and took care of him like an old pro. Bryson and I are lucky guys to have a great wife and mom!!

We have been talking about what we are going to do when we bring Bryson home, the nurses have told us and we agree that Bryson shouldn't be around a lot of people. For the first few weeks we have decided to only let family come over and see him. It isn't that we don' t want people to see him, we just don't want to chance him getting sick. As far as family goes we only want to have one set of family over at a time. We don't want to over expose him. Hopefully everything will go well and everyone will be able to see him soon. If you have any questions or you want to come over (family that is) call us first, that way we won't have too many people trying to come over at once.thanks for your understanding and continued prayers and support.

Rooming In

We are officially in possession of a little baby boy!!!! As of 8:45 we got Bryson and he is completely under our care. We are a little nervous but very excited. We will be staying here tonight, sunday night, and tomorrow night. Then if everything goes well and continues the way it has for the last couple of weeks, we will be bringing Bryson home on Tuesday some time. So we will try to keep the blog updated on how we are progressing and how mister Bryson is doing. Wish us luck on our first night with our baby boy!!!

This picture was taken with my web cam on my mac book

Car Seat Test!!

Today Bryson had his first test... and he passed with flying colors. He had to sit in his car seat for 2 hours and not have problems breathing or anything like that. He didn't have any problems at all. Here are some pictures of Bryson in his car seat.


We also found out a little more information including an estimated day for him to be coming home. They took him off of his caffeine yesterday and he has to go 5 days in the NICU without having any apnea. If that is the case then we get room in with him Sunday and Monday night and then brig him home on Tuesday!!!! Everything has to continue to go well, and if he keeps going the way he has been then it won't be a problem and he will be home with us. Courtney got her first crack at breast feeding today and both momma and Bryson did very good. So all in all Bryson is making amazing progress and will be home in no time. Thanks for all of your prayers and support, we will need them all the more soon when he is home with his mom and dad!

Big News!!!

We have some big news!!! Last night when we went up to see Bryson we had a few surprises when we got there. I got there first and he was bundled up wearing clothes with his isolette turned down. We took his temperature and it was 98.7!!! That means he is maintaining his body temperature better. Then while we were changing him we noticed they took the feeding tube out of his nose!!!! As of right now Bryson has eaten 8 full bottles in a row!!!! That means he is doing everything he can to come home from the hospital. His nurse last night told us some exciting stuff and that he should be coming home soon. We still do not have a definitive date of when he could be coming home, but we are excited and he is working so hard. This morning when we went to see him he was in an open crib for the first time!!! His nurse this morning said that she thinks we could room in with him as soon as tomorrow night. Rooming in is a 24 hour period that we stay at the hospital with Bryson taking care of him ourselves. If that goes well then we will be able to bring him home!! He still has to keep up eating and keep his temperature up, but it seems that the light has definitely be switched on and he is ready to come home!!!
No Tube in his nose!!!

Momma holding Bryson!!

1 month old!!!

Sorry for tha absence of information. For some reason whenever I have some time off of work I seem to be busier than any other time. This weekend of course was no different. Bryson was 1 month old yesterday!!!!! That is really exciting. Time is already flying by and each day he is getting bigger and bigger. He weighs 4 pounds 12.8 ounces and he is over 17 inches long. He is continuing to do about the same in the feeding area. He tries really hard at first and by the time he is about half way through a bottle he is almost too tired to finish. He is still taking 2-4 full bottles a day so that is good. Other than that it is businiess as usual in the NICU with baby boy Quinto. Pray that he will be able to eat more consistently so we can bring him home soon!! Thanks alot.

Friday

Bryson is still doing great. He is up to 4 pounds 9 ounces and he is still eating multiple full bottles a day. Last night we put his first sleeper on him and got some pictures. His nurse last night said she thinks that he should be coming home in no time. I have no idea what exactly what that means, but I am still sticking to our 2 more weeks prediction. I will update when we have something substantial to update. Thanks for checking in.

Eat it up!!

Yesterday Bryson took 4 full bottles!!! I don't think that he ate any of them in a row which means that he still has a long way to go, but he is doing very well. It seems that maybe he switched the light on. He has to eat all 8 of his feedings in a timely fashion, and consistently for a few days to make sure that he can do it when he leaves. I don't know how he is doing maintaining his body temperature, they have not said much about that. Last night he weighed 4 pounds 7 ounces. That is about it for today. Just eating and growing!!

Wearing clothes

Bryson is continuing to get bigger. He weighed in last night at 4 pounds 5.5 ounces. They have started to let us put some clothes on him!! That is exciting not only because he is even cuter in baby clothes, but it also means that before too long they are going to start trying to turn his bed down and begin to see how he does on holding his own temperature. The sooner he can do that, the sooner he can come home!! Other than that things are pretty much the same. Courtney and I started to assemble the many things we got for Bryson at the shower on Saturday. His room is already getting full! He took all of his bottle this morning which is a good sign, maybe that light bulb will turn on sometime soon.

Here is a picture of one of his preemie hats we brought up for him to wear...it was huge on him!!

Monday 3/2

Bryson is getting so much bigger. Saturday we had a deacons retreat with our church, and most of friday I was sidelined by my allergies so I didn't get to see our little guy until later on Saturday. He just looked like he grew so much. He is beginning to get some meat on him. He weighs 4 pounds 4.8 ounces!! He has almost gained 1 pound, his lowest weight was 3 pounds 5 ounces. On saturday I got to bathe him. It was so much fun!! Then I got to feed him. We had his baby shower this past Saturday too. He got way to many clothes, but it is pretty appropriate because his mom and dad have too many clothes too! He is doing good, he is taking his bottle better, still not regularly taking all of it. The nurses say that soon a light will go off and he will start making rapid progress. So we are just waiting on that light, I sure wish he would find that switch. But he is doing great and getting cuter every day!!