hi Lisa,

Sorry to ready about your scary time! if it makes you feel anhy better your not alone... i can understand how it makes you feel seing your lil one not breathing and changing colour right infrount of your eyes, you want to do anything to make them breath again!!!

My lil man was born at 35weeks, when he was bornt for the first three days we did not see his eyes open or hear boo out of him, i kept saying "somethings not right" and every midwife would pop in and say "aww look how content he is, such a good baby, nothing is wrong he is just a happy lil boy"

on the first day they tested his CRP level and it came back at 15, the pediatrician was a bit concerened, as you are aware a healthy babys CRP should be around 5. so they re tested on day 3. when it came back it was 64! they soon discovered he had echoli menangitus (spelling) they come in to tell me it was in his blood, skin, bowels and urine! we started getting very worryed. They used royal flying drs and flew us to Perth where he was to stay in the NICU.

When we got to the NICU they put or lil man on IV antibiotics straight away and re tested his levels, they were now 78! they put the brains machine on him to measure his brain waves, just incase the infection had gotten into his spinal fluid and then travel up itno his brain.

The next day the done a spinal tap to test the fluid and see if it was in his brain, (48hrs later) we got the results, unfortunaltey they didnt manage to get enought fluid, and the fluid they did get had blood in it so it didnt work..

Day seven, we went to see him in the NICU when a whole heap of alarms started to go off, all the drs and nurses ran over to him and started shaking him and waving air at his face, they told me and his dad to stand back, he started going a blue like colour!!! then he came good, they then informed us he has been having "eppisodes" throughout tyhe night where he stopps breathing. At first they were concered as they thought he was having sezures, but then they checked the brains wave monitor for the time he was not breathing and the movement was normal!!! thank god...

They then done ANOTHER spainal tap and sent it away for testing,

Day 10 we got the results back and yet again they didd not get a clead reading as it also had blood in in... they were sure taht if the infection was all thru his body it would also be in his spine, brain. We then went and had a brain ultrasound, and it came back normal, he started showing improvements and they took his gastric tube out (feeding tube) and but him on the brest, wich at first he would not take but then they intoduced me to a nipple shield and he went for gold :)

Day 11 he had an ultrasound done of his kidneys and a dye test thru a cathiter into his bladder to make sure there was no reflux (leeking)

Day 12 the pediatrican picked up the there was a murmor in his heart! he carmley said "he could have a hole in his heart" :O we paniked, they done a echo ultrasound of his heart and thank god it didnt seem to be anything wrong, just a shalow valve in which the blood makes a whistle noise when it passes thru!!

Day 13 and it was his 10th day on the IV antioitics, which is the dosage amount if it is in there brain, they treated him asif it was just to make sure, They then took his IV drip out and tok hm off all his monitors (YAY NO MORE CORDS)

Day 14 and were were lound to take our lil man back home to the local hospital to monitor him brest feeding as he had not put on any weight, three days later after sucessfully BF he had put on 120g short of his birth weight, and they said we could go home!!!

It was a great day for us! and we are very happy to be a fmaily, i hope ur NICU journey ends soon and you can take ur lil man home (if it hasnt ended already)

Big hugs to you as it is not nice staying there for 2 weeks let alone how long you have had to do it for! hope you are all doing well now and very best of luck!!!

Tess x x x