A Promotion

Hi all,

I'm so sorry for the delay in updating, days just fly here & yet seem to stay still.

Baby James is nothing short of a little fighter. He is now managing on a 10 hours off, 2 on Cpap ventilation cycle. He gets tired during the tenth hour but his blood gases say he's managing fine. Clever little lungs. He also gets very grumpy when he has to go back on, not that I blame him!

Feed wise he's really picked up. He's up to 10mls every 3 hours, increasing by 1ml whilst he tolorates. BIG NEWS today as well...he got to breast feed for the first time. He didn't entirely understand but is trying. It was beautiful to partake in something natural and bonding with my little boy. It was an incredible moment & one I shall never forget.

Now for BIG NEWS number 2, James has been promoted. He was moved down from Intensive Care to High Dependancy. Yipee!!

Anyway it's been a good few days although we catch ourselves & are careful to get excited! Thank you again for all your prayers & support!

Please pray for another CDH baby who arrived this morning. She is yet to be named but is beautiful!

Thanks again.

Mummy Beth xx

Father's Day

Hi folks,

Hope you're all well & all the Daddy's enjoyed Fathers day. I'm pretty sure Mike was the most excited Daddy around!

The lovely nurses on the NNU made cards for the Dad's with a picture on. Clever baby James also went shopping & brought Daddy a card and present! Most special of all was that Mike got his first cuddle with his son last night, a very special moment. James looked so small and adorable in Daddy's big hands!

James has been doing very well with his routine & even stretched to 4 hours off Cpap at a time. His new cycle is 8 on, 4 off. Well done baby J!!

Feeding appeared to be going well but little boy had bright yellow aspirates on Sunday night so they've suspended milk feeds for now. Mummy's hoping that's a very short term measure.

We are so proud of our little warrior & I'm learning to adapt to life up here. Mike's gone back to work so it's a little harder now but nothing a few good books & lots of baby time won't solve. The consultant suggested that it's likely to be the beginning of August by the time we're discharged but it's worth the wait a million times over.

Thinking of Max's family this very hard weekend & praying for them as well as the Studdard twins.

Lots of love

Beth xxx

The Rollercoaster

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in posting, yesterday was a tough day! The night after James was extubated, they tried to give him a break from the Cpap for 6 hours. We were extremely delighted to hear this & the doctors decided on a cycle of 6 hours on followed by 6 hours off. We couldn't believe how quickly this was happening. However, it proved to be too much too soon for little one. He was quite distressed by the end of the 6 hours off & was visably struggling to breathe. The following 12 hours he was exhausted & drained, he looked poorly again & it broke our hearts.

Still being the fighter that little James is, he battled through & is managing well on a 2 hours off 10 hours on cycle. He is retaining his carbon dioxide levels but that will rectify itself SLOWLY over the coming weeks.

James has started feeds! They began on 1ml every 3 hours, which has just been upped to 1ml every 2 hours....yum yum!

This NNU journey really is a rollercoaster. The ups are so high & the lows are almost too much to bear. As James is getting more alert it's even harder to watch him live this beginning in life. We thank God for our little miracle & long to take him home...not many more weeks we hope!

Congratulations are in order for Shawn & Stephanie who gave birth to their beautiful twin girls Brooke & Kamryn. Please pray for them.

Please keep praying for our beautiful baby James.

Mike & Beth xxx

Excited over poo!!!

Hi all,

Just a quick update on the marvels of beautiful baby James...

I don't really know where to start, so much has developed in 2 days. Yesterday when we went to help with James' first nappy he had done a poo. To most new mums and dads that's a reason to wince, however for us it shows so much progression. It means James' bowels are now working and it meant mummy & daddy could do a real parenting job. It's crazy how excited you can get over poo!!

Next, James was taken off morphene & swapped to paracetamol. He keeps sneezing & hiccuping now. So sweet!

When it came to afternoon cares, they decided to weigh little boy. Because they were moving all the wires anyway, they decided I could have a cuddle. This was certainly a moving experience. Baby James curled his little body & legs into me and settled into the most relaxed sleep I've seen him have. He certainly knew he was in my arms & we both loved every second of it.

Finally the biggest progress... On arrival to the unit this morning we were notified of James' extubation. This means he has been taken off the ventilator and placed onto a Cpap machine, one step closer to breathing on his own...clever boy! Mike & I couldn't believe how fast he's progressing.....a real little miricle.

We're hoping to start him on a little bit of milk tomorrow so we'll let you know how that goes.

Lots of love & thank you for your love, prayers & support....keep them coming.

Mummy Beth xxx

The latest on little James

Hello all,

Well baby James is incredible!! He is doing so very well! His 48 hours post op have been on the whole very good. He had a minor blip about 6 hours after his operation when they discovered his red blood cells were very low, causing his stats to change. However, following a blood infusion & some fluids he returned to normal pretty quickly, since then his blood gases have been good. They have successfully weaned his venilation pressure from 20-19 and he is on .25 oxygen.....very good!

Now for the exciting part.....they have turned off his paralytic drug. Over the next 12 hours James will start to wake up!! He is doing so well!! Mike and I are so excited to see his little eyes open & watch him respond to us. He's likely to become alert very late this evening so I don't think we'll be going to bed ;-)

James never ceases to amaze us. He is such a 'little warrior' as Daddy calls him! God is certainly unfolding a miracle in front of our eyes & we are so thankful!

Please continue to pray for baby James' recovery, we yearn to have a cuddle & feed him!

Thank you again for all your love & support

Mummy & Daddy Reeve xx

Post Op Update

Hi all,

Baby James has done wonderfully. His surgery went well & he is stable and so very brave! The spleen, stomach, small intestine & a few loops of the large intestine were up in the left side chest cavity. This is not unusual and everything was moved down successfully! They did not need a gortex patch for the hole but did need to sew the muscle tissue to his rib, again this is fairly common during this nature of repair. The surgeons seemed happy with how it went and are confident about his recovery. Obviously this is majour surgery though so we need to monitor all his bits & pieces carefully. The surgical team will check on him daily. We are so thankful to the wonderful staff here...they are nothing short of amazing!!

Since his op James has been stable & they continue to wean his care as is appropriate, he is tolerating things well at the moment.

I have uploaded an x-ray of him post op with everything in the right place....doesn't his chest look lovely & clean now?!

Today was one of the toughest of our lives & we are so thankful to God for our miracle baby boy. He is amazing beyond words. We are so proud of our little warrior.

The next 48 hours will be a chance to see how little James copes with his organs in the right place. We will let you know how this goes.

Mike & I are exhausted and delighted at the same time. We couldn't ask for more from this inspirational little chap! He is already showing Mummy & Daddy how he fights. The last 3 days he has been through so very much & we adore him more than we ever imagined! We will thank God every day of our lives for giving us the most special gift.

Thank you so much for your prayers everyone! Please keep them coming, he has some way to go before he is totally better but we have total faith that the miracle will continue.

Ashley-James wanted to model baby
Maxton's bracelet for you!! See picture ;-)

We are off to say night night to our beautiful son.

Thank you again everyone!!!

Mummy & Daddy Reeve xxxx

IN SURGERY

little James has just gone into surgery. Beth would like all the prayers you can muster for the next few hours!!!

Baby James Update

Hello all,

Firstly thank you so much for your kind wishes, prayers, love & support....James is a very blessed little boy & we have been so touched! We can read your comments even though we can't update the blog remotely...my brother (uncle James) is doing a great job for us though!!

Baby James is being an absolute star. His stats remain very stable & they've only got him on 27% oxygen (room level is 21%.) For those CDH nerds....we have managed to keep him away from ECMO & nitric oxide alltogether so far....praise God. If he continues to remain stable overnight they are going ahead with his repair surgery tomorrow (Friday) at 1pm. We really need your prayers folks, they have certainly worked this far with his night nurse calling him a 'miracle baby'. Please pray as hard as you can. I have a new understanding of love now & am really yearning to take our perfect little boy home. In short......please pray!!!!!

Thank you again for all of your support & love and we'll let you know asap if surgery is going ahead.

God bless & night night.

Beth xxxx

Stable and doing well - first pics from the hospital

Baby James is doing well. They've now moved him on to a conventional ventilator and are gradually reducing the level of support they're giving him which he is tolerating well. If he continues to respond as well as he is now, they have tentatively proposed Friday afternoon for his repair surgery, but it is still too early to say with any certainty. Now the moment you've all been waiting for... the pics:

Update

Baby James has stabilised well and his left lung is "lovely and big". The plan now is to leave him to rest and recover for a few days and then the doctor's will decide if they should reduce his support. His operation will be towards the end of the week at the earliest but apparently there is no rush.

Beth is, as you'd expect, very tired; but both her an Michael are in good spirits.

The New Arrival

Mike and beth have been blessed with baby James Michael Reeve born 9:20pm weighing a little 6 pounds and a bit.

ALMOST THERE

Almost there!!! Water's broken and contractions are strong and often.

Finally

Beth's induction finally got underway at around 2pm this afternoon. She seems in good spirits and "baby James is being very good and calm". The process can take some time but i'll let you all know more as soon as I do.

Well it appears I was a bit quick off the mark.

As it transpires there were further delays and Beth is still now waiting to be induced. She should be seeing a doctor early this afternoon and once she has things will hopefully get underway quickly. Fingers crossed for the induction this afternoon as the wait isn't making things any easier!

The first of the big days

As some of you will already know Beth, Michael, and bump-James began a long day with an early start at the hospital this morning. Following a considerable wait for an available place that stretched through most of the afternoon, Beth has now been induced.

I'll update this blog with any more news as I have it, in the meantime Beth and Michael ask that everybody pray like mad (or, if that's just not cricket, pray like sane but with more than the usual enthusiasm).

Thanks to everyone for your continued support!

James (Beth's brother)

1 Week Today & 38 Weeks...

Hi Folks,

Well we are now officially 1 week away from the BIG DAY!! I'm very much hoping James decides to come before then just to make sure he's naturally 'cooked' but obviously, if he wants to stay put we're all systems go for Monday.

I'm feeling fine, hot but fine and really looking forward to meeting this little boy. I cannot believe how fast this has all gone.....it seems like yesterday we got our 'positive' result, then the diagnosis and now its baby time!

We really ask you to pray now, we have faith that God will give us with the blessing of bringing our precious baby home but please continue to pray.

Also please pray for baby Avery, she is struggling at the moment but is being an extremely brave little girl, her family needs your prayers, as does she.

Finally, a big thank you. Thank you to all of you for your prayers, thoughts and support throughout this pregnancy. The 'CDH friends' we have made have been an invaluable source to us, talking through diagnosis and birth plans and also just getting to know some wonderful families, babies and angels we would never otherwise know. We continue to pray for you all and look forward to sharing stories in the future. Also my students, friends, family and everyone else at Wintershall have just been incredible, your prayers are remembered and I pray so very hard that you will be able to meet baby James in person very soon.

Love to you all and we'll keep you posted as often as we can when little one comes along.

With much love.

Beth and Bump James......xxxxx