Today started as a a casual morning. Later than usual get up (8am!). Just about to give Henry his breakfast and I got a phone call to say a bed was available at Alder Hey.

I was told there was no rush, and to make my way over to St Mary’s in the next few hours as things wouldn’t be happening quickly as there as the 2hole transport tea, to organize first.

So I thought that I best put some clothes in the wash and pack a bag to get prepared for a few nights away from home.

No sooner than I had put literally every item of clothing that currently fit (9 days after having a baby) in the wash, I got another phone call saying they were leaving within the next half hour.

A mad dash into the hospital, with nothing other than ourselves we arrived to see Thomas be prepared for his move.

The tra...

Another day of waiting. No beds available in Alder Hey. Much of the same as yesterday.

St Mays can no longer do anything to help Thomas in terms of progress forward. It has been decided that he needs to move to the specialist cardiac hospital, Alder Hey in Liverpool. They want this move to happen as soon as possible.

Thomas was proving harder to ventilate and keep stable today and he had a number of pretty scary desaturations, involving one with the emergency alarm being pulled (Mummy was having her own desaturations in the corridor at this point…!).

Alder Hey currently don’t have any beds available on the paediatric intensive care unit.

So we wait…

Today was was a big day for Thomas in terms of getting some answers. He was sent for a CT scan to have a look at his airways yesterday due to some questions over the results of his chest x-rays. The doctors were concerned that his x-rays were showing restricted/no growth of his right lung due to how displaced his heart was to the right because of his hugely enlarged pulmonary arteries.

Unfortanutely their suspicions were correct and it was seen that Thomas has an underdeveloped right lung as his heart is displaced to the right, so it took up the space of the lung during foetal development...

Today Thomas was taken for a CT scan to see what is going on with his airways.

We are just awaiting the results of this which will hopefully come by tomorrow.

A quiet day today. Thomas was kept mostly stable and comfortable while he had an x-ray and some consultations looking at his chest and why he wasn’t able to tolerate being extubate (even if he did decided to do it himself.  Twice..!).

Thomas has shown his determination again today as he really doesn’t like his breathing tube, so he decided to pull it out again in the early hours of the morning. He was tried on cpap again but this time didn’t tolerate it at all and after just 10 minutes, was reintubated.

He had a series of different scans, x-rays and tests looking at his chest and airways to see if they could figure out what was going on as to why he was able to breathe at birth but not able to tolerate coming off the ventilator.

One x-ray has given question about the development of his lungs which will require further investigation. Hopefully some more answers about this in the next couple of days.

Today was about trying to get Thomas of the ventilator.

He tolerated weaning the vent very well and got down to a respiration rate (number of breaths per minute) of 20 provided by the machine.

The doctors were planning to extubate him once he was slightly less sedated however Thomas had other ideas! He took it upon himself to remove his breathing tube (strong boy!) which then prompted the doctors to give him a go on the step down of ventilation, CPAP (this is a continual pressured flow of air rather than the ventilator which is given set pressures per breath).

Thomas appeared to tolerate this really well, however 4 hours later it seemed that his energy reserves were almost all used up and he started struggling, working too hard...

BABY GARNER HAS A NAME!

Introducing Thomas Edward Garner

Today has been about getting to know Thomas and seeing how he does. He has been stable and his ventilator settings changed throughout the day to see what he tolerates.

It is thought he has been making good progress but is just absolutely waiting to see how he does.

Big brother Henry was brought to meet Thomas this afternoon.  Henry was thrilled with the buttons and lights and incubator doors and had a glance at his baby brother.

ITS A BOY!!!

Happy Birthday Baby Garner!

Our baby boy made his very dramatic entrance into the world at 7.42am this morning, weighing 7lb11oz.

Baby was all ready to arrive ‘naturally’ until a last minute change of position caused him to have huge deceleration of his heart rate which he wasn’t able to recover, so a very quick decision was made to deliver him by emergency c section.

He surprised the doctors and came out pink and breathing for himself, and even managed a little cry with apgar scores of 7 then 9. After a quick check over, stabilisation and a cuddle from Daddy, he was rushed off to NICU for assessment.

Once in NICU, Baby was able to breathe for himself and a cardiologist was called to check him over as it was not expected that he would be able to breathe alone...