My abuelita decided she wanted to stay around until I got off of the ventilator so she could see my whole face. It took longer than anticipated, she even changed her ticket 3 times. This was ok because whole time she was here, she was making all kinds of clothes for me. By the time I did get off of the ventilator, I had a whole bassinet full of clothes!
This is a picture of me with my CPAP mask. Very, very uncomfortable thing it was-squishing my little nose all the time. But it was much better than being on that ventilator!
Obaason Noriko got my daddy this new camera so that daddy and mommy could talk pictures of me in the nursery without bothering my sensitive little eyes with flash. Daddy was even able to take pictures of me in the complete dark! He's so geeky that he just had to try this infared feature.
Once I got good at breathing with the CPAP, the nurses gave me a break away from it and put me on oxygen blow-by. See the blue mask my mommy is holding? It just blew oxygen by my face and I breathed just fine with this bit of help. My mommy and daddy also like it because this week meant that they could see my entire face for the first time. Plus, not having to have a machine help me breathe 100% of the time meant I was getting bigger, stronger and breathing better on my own every day.
Here's a picture with my daddy holding the blow-by mask to my face. This was great because with blow-by, my daddy could stare at my little face and he liked it very much.
This next set of pictures became some of my parents' favorites. Again, I'm on oxygen blow by, taking a break from that nose-squishing CPAP mask. My parents were so happy to be able to see my face and were really amazed that I had these big cheeks!
By now, my parents had so many photos of me that they wanted to share them with the doctors and nurses. Here you see, Dana, one of my main afternoon nurses. Daddy printed some of their favorite photos at home and took them to the hospital to decorate my room. Mommy called it my "Gallery of Progress". She said it helped them cope with the passage of time and it helped both her and Daddy remember that I was indeed getting bigger, stronger and healthier every day. Looking back at where I had been helped them see that time was indeed passing and that one day soon I would be home with them.
