Baby Has a Name

After much discussion, we have finally settled on a name for the baby. His first name is Zachary and middle name is Jason. Zachary means "God remembers (him)"and is a name found in many places around the world, including in the Middle East and India (as the form Zachariya).  Jason is in memory of Aaron's older brother and means "Healer". We have been calling him Zach or Zachy for short. We wanted to share an update on Zach's progress and what we have been told to expect over the next few weeks.

Two hours after birth, Zachary is holding on to his mom.

Our fighter surprised the doctors by breathing and crying, moving his arms around for the first 5 minutes or so after birth. Everyone said he was pretty feisty. Since then, there have been times when he is breathing on his own and times when he is just too exhausted. Overall, they say his breathing is becoming more regular and they hope to take him off the ventilator in the next day or so. This is the first major milestone for preemies.

The past several days they have been treating him with insulin for a high blood sugar level. His blood sugar level has been improving steadily and they just weaned him off insulin completely yesterday afternoon. They are also treating him for jaundice, a condition which is very common among preemies, with LED lights that provide a similar benefit as being in the sun and have been shown to be one of the most effective treatments for this condition.

Probably the most serious issue so far has been a high level of acidity in his blood. Yesterday they had to give him a blood transfusion to try to change the composition. They expect the next few days to be a little rough on him as his body reacts to the new substance. He is on morphine this morning. The staff at the NICU tell us that what he most needs right now are mother's milk and rest.

Nadia is being discharged this afternoon. She is recovering well with minimal discomfort and her fever is gone.

It was really sweet that Amanda and Mike drove up to be with us over the weekend. Shireen came and stayed with us starting Saturday and was a constant presence and Steve & DeDe were driving up and down from Scotts Valley to the hospital. All of our friends have been sending wonderful messages of  love, emails, texts, calls, flowers, fruit baskets, offers to cook....we really appreciate everyone's support.