Marco's Journey

Another week successfully managed! 2 down, 10 to go. Three thoughts to share with you this week: 1. Marco is doing great medically speaking!  No huge updates, which is exactly what we want - a nice boring NICU stay. Earlier in the week he dipped in his breathing, so they had to put him back on a form of support (Positive Pressure Ventilation) that pushes breaths into his lungs. That lasted a few days, then they were able to put him back onto a simple CPAP (forced air that helps the lungs stay open but does not assist with breathing). Aside from that it was business as usual. He is back to birth weight, but just barely, and they'd like him to gain weight at a faster rate - so they'll give him more calories. Either through more milk per feeding (if he can stomach it) or increase the amount of calories in the fortified milk (milk + extra calories/vitamins to help preemies). 2. The human body is a truly amazing thing. On a non-Marco related note - the doctors did some tests on my p...

Happy 1 week to Marco! And what a happy day it was for him. We've been anxiously waiting for the 1 week brain scan which would tell us if there were any bleeds... there were none!! What an amazing relief. While there will be many more hurdles along the way, this was a big one to overcome and it gives us hope for the next few months. The whole day I was on edge - especially after speaking with my neighbor this morning, who happens to live with her partner who has Cerebral Palsy (CP), which happened to occur because her partner was born 3 months early. Not kidding. I've lived next to these women for 6 years and never knew their story (aside from the fact that one of them had special needs and rarely left the house) - and to find out today, as I'm waiting for a scan that will tell me if my child may develop CP - it was a bit too timely for comfort. That said - all's well that ends well and we can happily move on to worrying about other things! Like pumping. I mentioned in ...

Today was a hard day. Not for Marco, he's doing great, but for me. I'm going through the motions of having a new born baby - being congratulated, postpartum diaper and sore breasts, pumping around the clock, up 2-3x a night...but I don't have my baby. For those who don't know, pumping sucks (pun intended), but pumping without your baby is the Worst. The exhaustion plus hormones really get to you when you don't have a cute baby to snuggle on the couch all day. If this was my first time maybe I wouldn't realize what I was missing - but I've been through this twice before. The first weeks after a baby is born are the most exhausting and rewarding. You get to know them, snuggle with them, feed them, relax and escape from the world with them. But not if your baby is in the NICU. I had a check up today with my doc, mainly to check blood pressure, and I couldn't hold back the tears. I heard a mom proudly say she was exhausted, but her baby finally slept through...

4 days old, 28 weeks adjusted "Adjusted" is how the NICU staff refers to the baby's age - they keep counting gestation weeks so that they can track typical milestones expected at each stage of pregnancy. Speaking of adjusted, we're not quite there yet. Having two boys at home makes it really difficult to figure out a schedule with Marco - our weekend was packed, like always. That said, I took off two weeks from work so that I can figure stuff out and create some semblance of a new normal. Status: we've had an exciting few days - Marco seems to be doing so well, which makes me cautiously optimistic. There are 3 things the docs are looking out for: breathing, brain bleeds and infection. - Breathing: After the first day they took out his breathing tube and replaced it with a CPap mask. Marco was able to breathe on his own, which was such amazing news. His cpap isn't oxygen, it is forced air - meaning it helps Marco's lungs stay open slightly to allow for easi...

Marco Dante Berg joined the world on April 8th, 2021 - arriving 3 months early at 28 weeks gestation and weighing only 2 pounds 10 oz. I decided to keep this blog to help us remember his story, keep our amazing and supportive community updated and potentially help future parents of extreme preemies navigate the long, pothole-filled, road to home. Our story started a little over 2 weeks ago on March 27th.  (Note - I know very little about the medical side of what is happening with Marco - I speak to some stuff in here, but my understanding is limited.) We had a great weekend - had my oldest son, L's, first baseball game, got my first dose of the COVID vaccine… then I started peeing myself. At 4pm Saturday I just started leaking - just enough to be embarrassed, but not enough to trigger any concern. The leaking continued all night, to the extent that I made my husband go buy me adult diapers. I figured I somehow lost my ability to hold my bladder and assumed it had something to do w...