Finn is 16 days old today, and is doing his best to move past a few issues and onto the “feeding and growing” stage of his NICU stay.

We awoke in a panic earlier this morning realizing we had missed midnight calls on both of our cell phones and the house phone from the Beth Israel NICU (as Shannon said, “We failed our first test as NICU parents!”).  Luckily, the voicemail from the neonatologist started out, “Just calling to give you an update on Finn. He’s fine, everything’s fine…” The update was just that they had decided to put a hold on his feedings for the time being as a result of his PDA, as the heart murmur had been more prevalent over the past day or two.  An echo earlier today showed that it was a bit larger than it had been last week, and the NICU team recommended another course of medicine (indomethacin) to try once again to close it.

So Finn will start another course of medicine today for that, and won’t be able to eat again until probably Wednesday morning. While the doctor admitted that the impacts of PDA aren’t perfectly understood, the extra blood flow to the lungs could be causing Finn’s lungs to have to work harder than they otherwise would, which might help explain why he’s needed some extra oxygen (generally in the 30% to 40% range now, after being as low as room air, or 21%, a little over a week ago).

Meanwhile, Finn is still as rambunctious as a sub-two pound baby can be, managing to pull out his breathing tube for a second time at about 10:00 am this morning. He’s been on a low dose of fentanyl, an opioid, since he was about two days old —  since feistiness is good, but too much feistiness means that he can’t get comfortable enough to allow his heart and lungs to do their thing. The NICU team hopes to wean him as soon as they’re able to, but Finn hasn’t let them do so quite yet.