Starting Feeds Today

Today was a great day for Jax. We got to take a lot of pictures of him without any tubes on his face, which let us see how precious of a baby he really is. Jax is doing so good that the surgeon decided to start his feedings tonight. Like Amber said, please be praying for him during this time that there are no further setbacks or infections when the feedings start. Jax has gained back up to 3lbs. 8oz. his birth weight was 3lbs. 9oz. so lets pray that he continues to gain weight also. I haven't seen him in about a week and he looked so good, Praise the Lord!!! His color was great, his hair has grown an little bit, and I got to hear him actually cry for the first time! We are praying hard that our sweet little Jax continues to thrive like he is!

mommy

so i am not smart enough to figure out how to post this under my own blog so I will use nate's. Went to see Jax yesterday and they have taken him off all the morphine (Thank you Lord Jesus) he is doing just fine without it. He is now back to breathing on his own and only has one IV in. I want to write my story of what a Awesome God we have and how he has changed my life through Jax but I will wait until someone can create me an account lol. Thank you all for your prayers because they are being heard by us all. We love you all very much! Next week will be hard because we need him to accept his feedings so please don't stop praying.

Just wanted to give a quick update since I have not posted in the past few days.

Jax is holding steady and is getting ready to start feeding again next week. Look for many updates when the feeding begins because this will be a critical time.

In the mean time please be praying that he will accept his feeds, process and adsorb his nutrition, gain weight, and that the Doctors will see a child that goes beyond anything they can explain!

We love you all and thank you for the prayers!

Breathing Easy

Daddy got to hold Jax today and he has made some great progress since the last update. The goal to get him off the vent and on to room air has been accomplished and he is breathing easy! He is managing his pain well and seems to be recovering well from the surgery.

He is still on antibiotics as a precaution against any possible infection, iv feeds for nutrients, and a drainage tube to get the residual from the surgery out of his tummy. Tomorrow he will get an x-ray to make sure his lungs look good and to make sure his pick line and drain tube is in still place. Overall he looks excellent and was active and alert through out the day.

The drainage from his belly is beginning to look like he is ready to start trying to feed again by the end of this week. Jax's next goal is to get the drain tube removed and replaced with a feeding tube like he had when he was born. This will be the beginning to the rest of the story of Jax's return to home. Once he begins his feeds many of our biggest questions will start to be answered...Will he tolerate feedings again after the surgery...How much nutrition is he adsorbing....How fast is the food passing....How fast will he gain weight....and there are many more questions that I cant even think of right now. Please pray for his little body to adapt to his changes, continued recovery, development and growth, and for no more setbacks.

Little by little we will learn more and keep the posts coming. We praise God for all he has done thus far and thank Him for all He is going to do with our Son. Thank you for all of your support, prayers, love, and friendship....I cant tell you enough how much it helps our family and how much we love you.

Thanks Sis

Thank you Britt for getting this together and keeping everyone updated. You have done an amazing job and Amber and I both love you very much! Amber and I will try to do as good as you have while normal life for you begins again.

Moving forward we will try to give you a daily update and alert everyone asap if any major changes occur.

The major things to keep praying for are Jax's strength in recovery and that his body will continue to accept the changes that took place in his belly. Pray for his heart, lungs and brain to remain in excellent shape and for his vitals to remain stable.

One of his next accomplishments will be to get him back up to full strength and off the vent. For this to fully happen his need for pain meds has to go down so he can support his own breathing. The Doctors do not anticipate any challenges with his lungs, so the sooner he heals the sooner he will be on the way to bigger and better things. I will do my best to provide details as to what he is trying to accomplish so that way we can cheer him on as he goes.

There will be a long list of obstacles ahead for such a little boy and together we can watch him overcome every single one. I pray that God will use Jax and this situation to let us know God is in control, bad things happen to all people, and if we put our faith in him and fight like little Jax we will persevere and overcome!

Mommy got to hold me today!!!

Isn't he just precious!!! We can't wait to all be able to hold him!
This is definitely BB's favorite picture so far, he's so cute!

I'm sleeping and resting so well, God's definitely not finished with me!

It's so nice to be in mommy's arms!!!!!

Today was the first day Jax got to be held since he was transferred to Atlanta. Amber was so excited to be able to hold her baby boy and Nathan got to take a lot of good pictures of the special occasion. Jax is still doing very well at this point. Still on morphine and the ventilator, but they are slowly moving him off of both. A day or so ago he developed a slight heart murmur, but don't worry, Dr.s are saying this is completely normal in newborns and should not effect Jax at all. Jax is resting very peacefully and is healing well. Lets all pray that he will have a restful stay and continue to heal fast so he can go home to be with his mommy, daddy, and big sister soon.

Dr.'s are amazed at our little fighter!

There is not a lot to up date today except that Jax rested very well last night and today. They are taking him off his ventilator little by little. The Dr.'s and Nurses are all amazed at how well Jax has pulled through surgery and everything else with no adverse effects. We are all missing our little buddy today, but are leaving him alone to help him rest well and peaceful. Tomorrow the family will go visit Jax to give him some company!

Today is a new day for Jax!

After surgery yesterday Jax was resting very well and peacefully. Dr.s are slowly starting to take him off of the morphine, which is good because now he will not be so sedated when we see him. Right now doctors and nurses are wanting Jax to get lots of sleep, this way he wont be able to feel as much pain from the surgery yesterday and he can rest up to gain his strength back. Currently he is doing much better than anybody expected.

We are definitely seeing the miracle of prayer through him. Yesterday the doctor stated that he went in to surgery to do his job, but he couldn't explain how everything else went so well = prayer. Also, Jax's nurse told Nathan that in all the 10 years she had been working in the NICU she has never seen a baby go through as much trauma as Jax has without having bleeding on the brain, Jax's brain is very healthy and no bleeding at all so far = another answered prayer!!!

We can all say that Jax has successfully completed his first big milestone in life. He has so much more healing to do so keep on praying for our little fighter!

Jax is out of surgery.

After waiting two hours, the Doctors came out and met with Nathan and Amber. They were pleased to hear that the surgery went perfectly, way better than they thought it would go. Jaxon had just enough intestine to reconnect, and as of right now they didn't see any infections. Jax is on his way down stairs to his NICU cubby where he will rest on full support untill he has enough strength to start his feeds and to breath on his own again. Nathan and Amber will get to see him in about an hour.

Thank you all so much for all your prayers. I know a lot of you have offered to help, but honestly, prayer was all the help Jaxon could get at this time. Isn't it amazing what an Awesome God we serve! To know that one minute the doctors are saying there is not much hope for him, then through our prayer and faith, they go in and can't find any infections!!! We are in awe of our Lord and truely blessed that Jaxon's surgery went well. We will be posting more up dates on little Jax soon. Please continue to pray for our "little fighter" That is all he needs right now.

Thank you so much and we love you all!

One last note, Big sister Mattie Grace has said two prayers today herself for Jesus to help Jax to start feeling better soon. After she was done I asked, "Mattie, does Jesus here your prayers?" she looked at me and said "YES!"

surgery

Surgery will begin anywhere between 11 and 12. We will know a lot more afterwards and will up date as soon as possible. Please pray during this time. Thank you all.

NEC

I forgot to mention that the doctors have diagnosed him with a condition called NEC. NEC stands for Necrotizing Enterocolitis. Below is a brief summary of what NEC is.

"Necrotizing" means the death of tissue, "entero" refers to the small intestine, "colo" to the large intestine, and "itis" means inflammation. But knowing what the words mean is only the start of understanding this infant disease.

A gastrointestinal disease that mostly affects premature infants, NEC involves infection and inflammation that causes destruction of the bowel (intestine) or part of the bowel. Although it affects only one in 2,000 to 4,000 births, or between 1% and 5% of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions, NEC is the most common and serious gastrointestinal disorder among hospitalized preterm infants.

NEC typically occurs within the first 2 weeks of life, usually after milk feeding has begun (at first, feedings are usually given through a tube that goes directly to the baby's stomach). About 10% of babies weighing less than 1,500 grams (3 lbs., 5 oz.) experience NEC. These premature infants have immature bowels, which are sensitive to changes in blood flow and prone to infection. They may have difficulty with blood and oxygen circulation and digestion, which increases their chances of developing NEC.

Retrieved from http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/digestive/nec.html

After talking with surgeons tonight....

After speaking with the surgeons just a few minutes ago the doctors told Nathan and Amber there are three different outcomes that can happen after tomorrow. I will state the two worse case first and save the best for last. Worse case, if they have to take more than what they want Jax could live intraveinasousally for a few years. Second, they will go in and there will be too much infection to do anything.

Best case, they will go in, Jax will have no to very little infection, they can place the intestines back together, and he can begin his healing process. I am confident that the Lord is going to answer our prayers and Jax will be healing well within the next 24 hours.

Surgery will be sometime tomorrow between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. Please pray for him during this time.

Yesterday and Today Currently:

Today and yesterday Jax rested well. Doctors still have him on full support, morphine, and lots of antibiotics to fight infection. Yesterday, Jax was having some problems clotting around the area they performed surgery so he recieved some blood and platelets. Also as of yesterday, his fever was very unstable, this is a major sign that there is still infection somewhere in his little body.


Today, Jax is still resting and on full support. Jax is clotting well today, and he got to go off his blood pressure medicine. His temperature is stable, Praise The Lord, and he is resting pretty peacefully. We are praying and hoping that there are no more infections in his body. Tomorrow we will see, but I fully believe that God will answer our prayers and heal our little buddy Jax.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Early Monday morning Nathan and Amber got a call saying that Jax's white blood cells were very high and he had developed an infection in his small intestine. Immeaditelly, doctors put him on several antibotics to try to stop the infection from spreading and from getting worse in his body. Jax was also put on a ventelator and morphine to help the pain and for Jax to relax and rest as peacefully as possible. The venelator was not because Jax was not breathing, his lungs are still very healthy, it's just to help him relax and not have to do as much work. By 11:00 a.m. x-ray's showed that the antibotics were not making anything better. At this time the decision was made to transfer Jax to Egleston at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

As soon as Jax arrived to Egleston doctors met with Nathan and Amber and surgery was performed on his small intestine. They ended up removing around 60% of his small intestine. The middle of the intestine is what the Dr.s removed, they had to clamp the other two ends together and sew him back up. On Thursday, July 22, Dr.s will go back in to sew the "middle part, so to say" of his intestines back together and to see if there are anymore infections in his intesine. The max that the doctors can remove of the intestine is 80%, they don't have too much left to work with.

Needless to say, Thursday is a big day for our strong little fighter and we really need all of your prayers.

Welcome to Jax's first blog

Jaxon Bryce Barrett was born on July 5th, 2010 at Northeast Georgia Medical Center. Weighing 3lbs. and 9oz. doctors immediately sent him to the NICU, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The first few days of his life Jax was assisted by some oxygen, but his lungs were developing perfectly and within a few days after birth he was breathing on his on. Jax was born at 29 weeks, 10 weeks early, due to Amber having an abruption of the placenta. Thankfully, Amber had a successful delivery and the doctors got Jax out in time to where he did not have any damage due to the abruption.

In this blog, Jax will have posts by his Mommy and Daddy, Aunt BB, Uncle Jai, Nanna and Pappa, and of course big sister Mattie Grace. We all love our little Jax very much and we are praying for him always. The goal of this care page is as you read about Jax's recovery and progress we hope that you pray for him and continue praying for him as he begins his journey ahead of him. We are do thankful for our family and all the kindness you have offered at this critical time of need.