Carson is home!!!

Here is Carson's Story

Carson Kent Eggett was born by c-section on April 29th at American Fork Hospital, at 36.4 weeks. He weighed 6 pounds 1 ounce and was 18 1/2 inches long. He was born with severe anemia. His red blood cells were being attacked by my body, because I have antibodies built up inside of me that attack Positive Blood. My body saw Carson as a foreign object and attacked his red blood cells. Because he was so anemic they had to transfer Carson by ambulance down to the NICU at Utah Valley Hospital. He had to have a full exchange blood transfusion at just 20 hours old . They took most of his blood out of his body and replaced it with donor blood. He spent 10 days in the NICU at Utah Valley Hospital and we got to bring him home yesterday on Mothers Day :) He spent 8 of those 10 days under photo therapy lights. He is also having some respiratory problems, where he forgets to breathe. They think that this is because he is so wiped out and tired from being so anemic. He is currently on oxygen and a heart monitor, and will probably need those for 1-2 months. Because he was born so sick, the Drs. have advised us to not take him in public places for awhile (as much as possible). They said that we should limit visitors, and especially no children in the house except our own.  As much as we would love to have people over to visit him and see our cute new baby, we just can't have too many visitors right now. We are so happy to have our baby home. We are all in love with this sweet new baby.  Get ready for a major overload of Carson Pictures. I want to make sure I document all that happened while it's fresh, so when I do get around to scrapbooking I will remember all the little details.

Here's our 4 kids.  I can't believe I'm a Mom of four.  The girls got to see him one time when he was about 1 hour old for just a  few minutes through a window before they transferred him to Utah Valley Hospital.  The next time they saw him was 10 days later.  This is right after we brought him home and they had all had a turn holding him.

Little Monkey - 8 days old 

Here is a picture of Carson getting his exchange transfusion. He had two different lines that they ran through his belly button. They took the blood out of one line and put the new donor blood in the other line. I still can't believe that most of the blood in his body is donor blood.  It's just too weird, but I am so grateful for medical technology that saved my baby's life.   If you look close at this picture, you will see two syringes.  Those were the size of syringes they used, and they took 20 syringes of blood out of his body and put 20 syringes of new blood in.  That is ALOT of blood for such a little guy.

I had Carson on a Friday and stayed in the hospital until Tuesday.  The Dr. let me take a 4 hour leave on Sunday and Monday to go visit Carson.  This was one of our visits. He looked like he was in a space shuttle or something.  He had a total of 6 photo therapy lights on him.  The nurses kept telling us they've never seen so many of those lights on a baby before.  They slowly weaned him off of them over a period of 8 days as his bilirubin and hemoglobin started to get more stable. 

On Sunday I got to nurse him for the first time.  They were really strict about how many minutes he could be out of the lights.  He got 15 minutes out on this day.  He latched on perfectly the first try.  Everyone was amazed at what a great nurser he was. 

2 days old

Holding his own binky in.  He had to wear those glasses for 8 days.  Poor little guy! 

When they wouldn't let me take him out to nurse,  Kent fed him a bottle. 

Being under the lights makes it hard to take good pictures.  But here is another one of Kent feeding him the bottle. 

All I could really do on my visits is touch him.  It was so heartbreaking to see him like this, but I knew it was making him better. 

Tummy Time 

2 days old  

For the first 4 days of his life he didn't need any oxygen and ate from a bottle, then all the sudden on Tuesday his sats started to drop and he would forget to breathe.  They think it was because he had been so anemic that he was just wiped out and they had pushed him too hard with drinking bottles.  They told me he probably felt like we would feel when we had the flu.    It sure was nice to take a few pictures of his cute little face before he got the oxygen and NG tube in his nose.  I wish we would have gotten more.  I didn't realize his face would be so covered with tubes and stickers and stuff for so long. 

Thank goodness for binkys.  When you can't pick your child up, a binky is a life saver. 

All decked out with his Glasses, Oxygen, NG Tube, Monitors, IV in his head 

I cried and cried when I came in one day and saw the IV in his head.  I know that it's a good place to have an IV and they assured me it's the least painful for him, but it's still so sad to see.  The days all kind of mix together now, but I think he was 5 days old here.  Oh and if you are wondering what the indent on his head is, it is the bones overlapping.  They said that it's normal with pre-term babies and as his head grows they will spread out and look normal.

Just Chillin under the lights 

This was day 8.  He was finally out of the lights and could have some clothes on.  The nurse put a preemie outfit on him and it was too small so it wouldn't snap.   

On Saturday, I had to do a 24 hour stay and nurse him around the clock.  They gave me a room and I did a trial run with him in the room with me overnight.  They do this with babies going home on oxygen.  I put him in his first outfit.  This picture is funny and fitting.  He looks like a frog wearing a froggy outfit, and he even has his tongue out.  8 days old.

He pooped in the frog outfit, so I changed him into his little monkey outfit. 

9 days old

On Mothers day we brought him home.  What a wonderful Mothers day present.  The girls could hardly wait to hold him.

Aubree 6,  Kendra almost 4,  and Carson 10 days 

 We are not allowing any kids in our house atleast until school gets out.  But since we've been home I've been showing Carson to the neighbor kids through the window atleast a couple times a day.  It's pretty cute to watch their faces light up.

You can see Me and Carson and Kendra in the window.  Oh and see that beautiful flower pot?  Kent gave me that for our 10 year anniversary last week.  I love it!

Just hanging out with my little buddy.  It's so nice to be home. 

Aubree's first time holding baby Carson 

Kendra's 1st time holding Carson 

And Maleah's first time holding Carson 

Little Teeny Buddy in his big Carseat