Day 4 - Walking into something wonderful

Day 4 has been quite a treat. This is our first full 24 hours not having a room in the hospital, and we weren’t sure how that was going to go. But it has been working out great. We have a little schedule worked out for when we are here, and when we take our breaks at home (which is about 15 minutes from the hospital). We got to start the day off by holding him for about an hour. He slept most of that time, but it is such a great feeling to have some extended contact time with him.

His bilirubin count (which is the level they measure with jaundice) came down quite a bit, and they thought that today might be the day that he comes off of the light. He finished his course of antibiotics, so that is one less thing that they are putting into him. Because his hands kept getting puffy, they moved his IV from his hands to his forehead. That sounds so much worse than it actually is. He has less nerve endings there (and so do you) so it actually bothers him less. They also moved his feeding tube from his mouth to his nose, which also sounds a bit worse than it really is. The benefit of this for us is that his mouth is fully clear and makes him look much better.

After we took our lunch break at home, we came back in for our evening shift in the NICU. Kristi had a heart-stopping moment when we walked into the room and saw that his incubator was empty and there was no blue light shining. But this turned out to be a GREAT thing. We kept walking and right behind his incubator was a little open air crib. He was wrapped up like a little burrito and looking very good. He is also wearing his first little PJ outfit and looks SO CUTE! They said that he was actually getting a little hot in the incubator and his jaundice was looking good, so they moved him to the crib and shut the light off. As long as his temperature holds steady he should be able to stay in the crib.

We did his check, changed his diaper and then got to sit and hold him for over an hour while he ate. Kristi has been pumping away, slowly building up more and more milk. When we take our lunch break at home she pumps there and today we built up enough to have him eat almost 100% breast milk for his 5:30 pm feeding. He was awake, looking around and suffering from a little case of the hiccups. It is hard to understand how something that annoys me so much when I have them can be so ridiculously cute when he’s got them.

We just laid him down for the nursing shift change and are having some dinner in the cafeteria before heading back in to be with him. He’s still breathing a little bit fast, but without too much effort. It has been a GREAT day of progress.