On the Homefront

Life with Brendan at home is wonderful! Big sister Rory has been great about keeping us updated as to whether Brendan is "sleeping" or "woke up!". She has also been able to involve him in dress up and playing cooking...poor kid doesn't stand a chance with her! She also can't understand why he can't "get up and walk" or "do bubbles", but we think she'll give him about another week to figure those things out!

Brendan is feeding a lot better, but still not exactly where the doctors want him to be, so we have weekly trips to the doctor for weight checks, and at last weigh in yesterday he was 9lbs, 15ozs...sounded good to us!

We are looking forward to having our family under one roof for Christmas, and we hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas too! We can't thank you all enough for all of your prayers, phone calls, emails and postings on the blogs. I wish we had all the time in world to respond to each and every one of you, but please know that we are so thankful to you from the bottom of our hearts!

Picture Perfect

Our Little Champ!

Well it didn't take long at all..Brendan has figured out the bottle all by himself! All day today he took his feeds by bottle, no need to use the feeding tube! It's been a long few days for Bryan and I, as we've been at every feeding (which doesn't sound bad, but it's different when you have to get up, dressed, get in the car, etc) but he's done such an incredible job! We are keeping our fingers crossed that Friday morning they will take the feeding tube out his nose! We'll keep you posted!

Manga!

Brendan is doing pretty well on his bottle feeding, he's taking about an ounce and a half 3 times a day. Poor thing just gets tired easily, so it's harder for him to eat a lot. He does burp like a champ though! It's taken a little getting used to feeding him too. We had to start by feeding him while he was in his crib so that he wouldn't get too comfortable and fall asleep, tough I know! That's where all our focus is these days is getting those feedings going, and by the looks of him, he enjoys eating too much to not figure it out quickly!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 1 month birthday Brendan!

Bryan and I said today how it's hard to believe that he's just one month old, sometimes it seems like he's been here for so much longer! Our little fighting Irishman has been through so much, and lately it's been all good news!! Brendan is finally off all of his oxygen and his holding his numbers well. He's still struggling a little bit with his bottle feeding, but he'll be getting a visit from a speech therapist tomorrow, and hopefully she will be able to give all of us a little help!

One month down and a whole lifetime ahead of him to continue to amaze us all!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well, to add a little normalcy to our lives, we went and got our Christmas tree today. Rory of course scouted out every single one until the perfect one was found! I'm also posting this because when Rory gets older I would hate for her to go to therapy and talk about a web site that we had just for Brendan! So our tree is now up and decorated!

As for our "Mr. Man", as we call him, he was offered his first bottle yesterday. He took a half of an ounce, which may not seem like much, but it's huge for him! He continues to work on it, and we'll keep you posted, as always!

Are you ready for some football???

Brendan, as you can see, is resting up for the big game tonight, as he will be starting on the offensive line!

Brendan continues to get better each day. The big thing on his list of things to accomplish is to begin bottle feeding. Since he is almost a month old and has never had a bottle, it will take him some time to figure it out. As I told the nurses, well he's a boy so I'm sure as soon as he figures out that he's going to have to figure out the bottle in order to eat he'll have it mastered in no time!

Back to where he started

Today Brendan had his second ambulance ride, which went far better than the first one! Brendan is now back a Wilford Hall on Lackland Air Force Base, which is the original hospital that he was at. He is making incredible progress and impressing everyone, especially his doctors!

For the past 2 days he has been awake and alert for the greater part of the day. He turns his head when he hears our voices and he loves to stare at some black and white cards that one of his nurses hung over his crib.

When we left him tonight he was sound asleep, and we were waiting for him to start snoring!!

Big Day!!!!!

Such a big day...we were finally able to hold our precious Brendan!!! It was so incredible to finally be able to pick him up out of his and be able to rock him to sleep. Bryan finally got to hold one of newborn babies, and he is such a natural, that Brendan fell right to sleep.

Brendan is now off of the Nitricoxide which was helping his lungs, as well as the Prostin which was keeping the "extra" duct in his heart open. To say that the doctors are impressed with how well he is doing would be an understatment! It is still a wait and see few days to make sure that he can keep his numbers out with the medicine, but the next step would be to wean him off of the oxygen and then to get him to start eating from a bottle, which is going to be a challenge, but we are very hopeful he'll figure it out!!

This truly was a wonderful day for us, and the only thing that will make it better is when we are able to have a complete family picture once we get Brendan home!!

Dad is in charge

As you can see I have been working tirelessly with the doctors to assist them in developing a suitable treatment plan. I would say to date we have been successful. Brendan had a good first day after surgery and the doctors are happy with his progress and they will begin weening him off his oxygen, nitros oxide, and heart medication. Over the next couple of days we will proceed cautiously to get his lungs healthy and ready for follow on surgery.

So far...

...so good! Brendan's surgery yesterday was a success! He did amazingly well being handled by all the doctors and didn't cry much. As a matter of fact, for having not eaten since 9am, he was quite content!!!

When the doctor was finally able to get the cathader into his heart she noticed that his pulmonary artery was a lot more blocked then they had first thought, so it took her much longer than she had anticipated to get a wire across the artery so that she could then inflate the balloon to pop the artery open. She finally did it, and it worked like a charm! The blood started flowing through there just as it should have!

When she finished another surgeon came in to do a lung biopsy on Brendan, and that went very well too! From what he saw he thought that the lungs looked pretty good, but we have to wait for the officially report to come back.

What this all hopefully means is that the increased blood flow from his heart to his lungs should help his lungs to recover from his lung disease faster. That should hopefully mean that they can wean him off of his oxygen and nitros and then we can hopefully, and finally hold him!

The next few days are going to be a little rough on Brendan, but hopefully he will recover from the surgery quickly, and then we'll talk with the doctors and see what the next step is, but so far all of your prayers and good wishes are working!

He liked the helicopter better!

Well it's official, Brendan's favorite mode of transportation is not the ambulance! His poor nurse Karen had to rub his belly during the entire ride! Oh well, looks like we won't have many road trips in our future! He is now resting comfortably at Santa Rosa hospital in preparation for his angioplasty and lung biopsy tomorrow afternoon. The doctor told us the procedure will most likely take between 4-5 hours, so once we are back we'll have news to pass along! If you don't mind, say an extra prayer for our little man and his doctors tonight!

Another Hospital....

Tomorrow morning Brendan will be transferred to Christus Santa Rosa Children's Hospital in downtown San Antonio. He is being transferred there so that he can have a procedure done on his heart. At this moment not only does Brendan have hole in his heart but he also has some lung disease that he is trying to overcome. Until his lungs are strong enough the Doctors don't want to do any heart surgery because it will take him too long to recover. The first procedure that he will be having is an angioplasty to open up his pulmonary artery which will increase the blood flow of oxygeniated blood to his lungs which will help his lungs to recover from the lung disease a lot faster. So please keep him and his doctors in your prayers, and we'll post an update here late Wednesday after he has his procedure.

Our Fighting Irishman

Brendan Malone Kilbride was welcomed into our family on November 6, 2007 at 12:26pm. Brendan has Down Syndrome, also know as Trisomy 21. Bryan and I found out that our unborn baby had Down Syndrome when we had an amnio done in June. From that point on we had ultrasounds scheduled about every month to check for possible signs of Down Syndrome, which included heart defects. After all of these ultrasounds it was determined by 3 technicians and 2 Perinatologists that the baby did not have a heart defect. It wasn't until Brendan was born that we found out that he does indeed have a hole in his heart, or Tetralogy of Fallot. Brendan was then medflighted from Carl R Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood to Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Since being here Brendan has gotten incredible medical care, and Bryan and I have made a temporary home here, while getting back to Rory in Harker Heights a few days every week. This is quite a trying time for our family, but we are so blessed to have such wonderful families and friends who keep all of us in their prayers.