Peyton- 1 Month

Peyton is one month old! Here are a few pictures of Peyton at one month.

So happy that he is finally starting to open his eyes more. For the first couple weeks he would barely open his eyes. He had some blood vessels that popped during birth and it has finally healed.

He is very attached to his pacifiers. 

He is also a daddy's boy which i'm not used to since Patrick is a momma's boy. Peyton loves sleeping in Michael's arms and its really the only place he will take long naps. Peyton is very cold natured, which makes cuddling with Michael, who is extremely hot natured, just perfect!

He has been quite fussy recently and i'm not sure if its because he feels bad or if he has acid reflux. Still trying to work on what's upsetting the little guy so much!

Cooing, love this face

Enjoying his playmat

Sweet little boy had a rough few days at the hospital this week. I noticed he felt very hot in the middle of the night and he was very fussy. We had a few thermometers in the house but I couldn't get any of them to work. There was a forehead thermometer in Patrick's room, but I knew it wasn't very accurate for newborns. When Patrick woke up I took Peyton's temperature and it read 99.5. I decided I would let him nap and check again after the nap. When he woke up I took his temperature again and it was 99.7. However, his forehead felt much hotter to me. I called the doctor and they said to bring him in immediately. My doctor was out of the office so I saw another doctor. The nurse took his temperature and got 101.3 and ran out to get the doctor. I heard the doctor yell to another doctor that she hadn't seen this baby yet but it was a three week old with a 101 temperature and she needed him to come look as well. I knew it was pretty serious after I heard that. She quickly looked him over and called in another doctor to look at him too (i'm guessing that's protocol with such a young one). The doctors told me we needed to go immediately to Vanderbilt's Children's Hospital and that they would be expecting us. She explained that any temperature over 100.5 in a baby younger than 6 weeks is taken very seriously. She said that I should prepare myself for what would happen at the hospital and that they would act very quickly and there would be many tests done as well as a spinal tap.  They are very careful with newborns since they have not built up an immune system yet and something very minor could be very tragic for them. It was very hard to watch the amount of antibiotics Peyton had to receive and all the tests!

We checked into the emergency room for all the testing around 1:00pm and didn't get into the room we would be staying in until 7:30pm. It was a long few hours! They decided to send us to the NICU since Peyton was so young. They told us to plan on staying there for the next 48 hours (at least). Michael and I both stayed during the days and Michael left in time for Patrick's bedtime. Allie and Big kept Patrick after school which was a huge help!

Peyton ended up having a minor common cold and we were so thankful! It is really scary having your newborn so sick! Although, it was sort of funny that every nurse that first saw Peyton said something to the effect of "oh my goodness that is a big baby." They also commented on the frequency he eats. The boy sure does love to eat! He gained over 2 pounds in 3 weeks! I think they are so used to seeing premature babies that i'm sure my 9 pound baby looked huge compared to the other 4 pound babies!

Here is a picture of my little buddy hooked up to all his machines. Heartbreaking! Really makes you thankful for a healthy baby! I really felt sorry for the other families who had been there for months.

So thankful to have my sweet little Peyton back at home!