As you might have heard, there have been some complications in little Cassidy's life. Here's a quick summary.
On Saturday, about 7 hours after being born, Cassidy had a seizure. He was taken from the hospital in Davis (where he was born) to the NICU in Sacramento, where they could give more appropriate care. He had another seizure there. We drove up to Sacramento to see him last night.
The issue:
In addition to being a late baby, he's had two problems:
- They used the vacuum pump to extract him, which caused some head trauma and bleeding under the scalp. His head is sore, but we're hoping this will all heal in time.
- He was without oxygen for some period of time before or during labor. We don't know how long, or what this caused. The seizures could be a result of this, or of general birth trauma.
What we know:
The good news is that he seems to be doing well today. He can breathe on his own, responds to stimuli, can suck on a pacifier, cries appropriately, opens his eyes, and can be soothed. These are the sorts of reactions you would hope to see in a healthy baby.
The bad news is that some sort of event has happened, and we don't really know how it will play out. There could be little or no problem, there could be developmental delays, or there could be something more serious. The doctors are encouraged at this point, but they're not sugar-coating anything.
He's getting very good care right now in Sacramento. Currently, he's receiving phenobarbitol, which has prevented any further seizures (also a good sign), antibiotics to deal with the meconium he was exposed to, and is being fed through an IV to give his system time to recover.
He got a CT scan this morning which showed swelling at the top of the cranium, probably as a result of the vacuum. He's getting an EEG tomorrow and an MRI soon, which will provide additional data about brain function, although this is very difficult to evaluate in newborns.
Long story short:
It's really hard to know what will happen here. We're cautiously optimistic, and everyone at the hospital seems happy with his progress, but there may be problems that we can't anticipate for a while. We'll just have to see how things go.
Things are really day-to-day right now. He'll definitely be in the ICU for several more days. We're heading back up to Sacramento tomorrow to be with him, and will post updates here when we know anything. We have our phones off when we're in the hospital, but you're welcome to leave voicemail or email, but don't be offended if we don't reply right away.
Here's some pictures - he's quite cute!
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