I think that I mentioned on here before that E was diagnosed with a heart condition while he was in the NICU. He has SVT or supraventricular tachycardia. His heart races when he is at rest and gets up to over 200 beats a minute. It is an electrical problem in the heart where the upper and lower chambers have an extra electrical connection. Most babies grow out of it by 1 year of age or even sooner in some cases. It is only a problem when their bodies don't get enough oxygen. These babies tend to blanch or turn blue at random when they're having an episode. Sometimes they have trouble gaining weight and growing properly. It is especially troublesome when their episodes last longer than 3 hours at a time. Ethan had episodes that lasted less than 30 seconds each. We only picked it up because he was on a heart monitor the entire time he was in the NICU, had he been home we might not even know he has this. He is on medicine to make sure that it stays controlled and has not turned blue ever. If he does not grow out of it they can do a procedure where they use ablation to rid the heart of the extra connection.
Anyway, on Tuesday, we drove the 4 or so hours up to Albuquerque to visit with the pediatric cardiologist. They did an EKG which looked normal and was not indicative of a syndrome that is associated with SVT. All in all they said things look great, however, they also send us home with a Holter heart monitor for 24 hours to look for episodes. Luckily we can mail the heart monitor back instead of making a second trip. They upped his dose of medicine due to his weight gain and will do an ultrasound at a follow up in 2 months. For that appointment we can go to their outreach clinic that is only 1 hour away. He did not care for the monitor and the cables attached to the leads pulled at his skin as we moved him around. I really feel for the parents of kiddos who have to have one of these on for any lengthier amount of time, 24 hours was really long enough!
Then on Wednesday we had a follow up with his pediatrician who felt he was now healthy enough for circumcision. It was scheduled for the next day, so on Thursday morning we took him in to the hospital and the pediatrician did it in the newborn nursery. I don't want to start any debate here about whether or not we should have circumcised our son, it is a very personal decision for everyone involved. I will say that aesthetically it didn't matter to me either way, so my preference would have been to not have it done at all. It mattered a whole lot more to Nate, and, in the end, I felt it was best for him to have the final say on his son's circumcision.
They had us wait in this small room that was right next to the nursery. We could hear everything! I really wish they either let us in the room with him while it was done or had us completely our of earshot. He cried for the whole 45 minutes they had him, and then for the next 15 minutes or so after they brought him back. I don't know for sure, but I believe he was likely strapped down for that whole time to do the procedure and to stop the bleeding afterwards. He finally calmed down when swaddled and then I put him in the moby wrap and he fell asleep. The doc said that they do use anesthetic for older babies, but that it wears off in an hour. We gave him one dose of tylanol but after that he slept most of the day and most of the night. I had to wake him up to eat twice. I haven't given him any more tylanol today and he really seems like himself today except during diaper changes, where he screams, and rightfully so.
We are back in disposable diapers due to the circumcision. We were given bacitracin to put on the circumcision and told to put a dollop of Vaseline in the diaper to prevent things from sticking together. Vaseline is a huge no-no with cloth diapers, so rather than deal with liners and risk destroying our diaps, I just bought a few packs of disposables. I accidentally bought 1 size too big, but incidentally it holds a lot more pee and poop and therefore we can change him less often, which tortures him (and me) a lot less.
He weighed in at 7 lbs 10 oz at the cardiologist on Tuesday but didn't get weighed at the pediatrician because he was wearing his heart monitor. Size 1 diapers fit, but are a little large. He wears mostly newborn cloths when in disposable diapers but some 0-3 and 3 mos cloths with cloth diapers.
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| weekly cuteness |
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| EKG |
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| Heart monitor and borrowed purple diaper cover |
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| Heart monitor under onesie with leggings |
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| After a middle of the night wardrobe change. Clashing like it's going out of style...oh wait... |
Looking cute, as usual! Our boys were not pleased about diaper changes after their circumcisions either, but it helped a TON if I could swaddled the top half of their bodies before changing their diaper. After 3 or 4 days they were much better!
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