Day 18 - Homeward Bound!

We just got our discharge order! We are about to get our final instructions on how to take care of this kid without a 24-hour nursing staff and then we are free to take Corin home. We are SO EXCITED! More to come...once we get home!

Day 17 – A very happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day! When we came in this morning all of the nurses who are mothers were wearing tiaras, and had extra tiaras for all of the newborn’s mothers. So Kristi walked around all day today as queen for a day, and had the crown to prove it. Corin, being the ever thoughtful child he is, gave his mother some of the best news she could ask for on her special day.

Corin has had a FANTASTIC 24 hours. At his weight check this morning he tipped the scales at 6 pounds, 13.2 ounces, which is up almost 3 ounces in one day. The nurses also said that last night he had pulled out his feeding tube. So they fed him with the bottle and he took all of it. So at the next feeding they left the tube out, fed him with the bottle and he took all of it. So at the next feeding they left the tube out, fed him with the bottle and he took all of it. I could type that sentence five more times. He has now had his last eight feedings all from the bottle, eating all he needs, and his feeding tube remains out! Our plan is to keep feeding him with the bottle and just work on breast feeding when we are able to get him home. That should reduce the amount of time we spend here at the NICU.

The only real downside of the new eating routine is that we let him rest the entire time between meals, so we don’t hold him at all except at meal time. In the time between meals we let him sleep and just sit by his side. Pop and Lola came for a visit today and even they had to forgo their holding time so that little Corin could get his rest.

Getting him home seems to be fast approaching. They gave him his hepatitis-B vaccine today, along with a hearing test (which he passed), and will be giving him a test in his car seat tonight. These are all things that they do just prior to releasing babies from the NICU. We are trying to remain cautiously optimistic. However the cautious part can be a little hard and we are leaning more towards wildly optimistic. We are hearing and hoping that within the next 24-48 hours we will be able to leave the hospital and take our son with us. We’ll keep you posted!

Day 16 – Like sands through the hourglass...

I LOVE THIS PICTURE! (You can click on the pictures to enlarge them)



Just as we fall into a regular routine at the hospital, we fall into our routine in our blog. As such, we start be posting that Corin’s weight has increased to 6 pounds, 10.5 ounces. So he is absorbing the food he his getting. However he is still only getting about half of his feedings from the breast/bottle and half from the tube. He’s done well several times being able to take back-to-back bottle feedings, but we have yet to get through three in a row.

Not much else new has happened. All of his medical issues have been worked out and we just continue to wait for his feeding switch to flip. We are more than ready for it to happen. The past few days have really started to run together. It is just a constant stream of shifts at the hospital, broken up by meals and nap breaks. It is getting a little old, but we do try to pause from time to time to be thankful for the fact that, overall, he is very healthy and that (sometime) he is going to be coming home with us.

Corin got to round out the day with a visit from Grandma, which is always enjoyable. He also got a certificate in the mail today from Grandpa Yarde for a bicycle trailer. Daddy sends out a big thanks and can't wait to get out on the open road with his little guy!

Day 15 – Making weight / GREAT VIDEO ADDED TO YESTERDAY

As he has been pretty much everyday, Corin continues to do a great job gaining weight. This morning he was up to 6 pounds, 9.3 oz. That is up well over an ounce from yesterday, and the NICU likes to see the babies gain at least an ounce each day. So he is right on track there. His jaundice is taking care of itself and those numbers continue to come down nicely. He had a blood draw this morning to tests for common genetic disorders (standard practice for all babies in the hospital) and those results take about a week to come back. But we did some genetic testing while he was still living in Kristi, and all of that came back fine. So there is no reason to suspect that any of this will be different.

Corin had a few good meals today, doing well on both the breast and with the bottle. He eats his entire meal, or almost everything, pretty much every time he eats from a bottle. Breastfeeding is coming along very well, but he has yet to get a full meal that way. He latches on very well, and he and Kristi are working well together. It is just more effort than the bottle feedings, so he gets tired out a little faster.

We have two special pictures posted today. One with his hands clasped together, which the nurses actually got so excited about they took the picture. They said that you hardly ever see babies do that. So I’m not sure what that means, but he is obviously extraordinarily gifted in some way. The second shows off the fact that the scrap of his umbilical cord fell off and he now has a super cute belly button to go along with the super cute rest of him.

We’ve got some sleeping and bottle feeding videos from today, and a great video added to yesterday. After I left for my court appearance, Kristi got a GREAT SMILE VIDEO. Those of you who felt cheated by the last smile video, which only had a brief flash, should feel Corin has made it up to you with this one. It is added to yesterday’s post and on YouTube. Enjoy.

Day 14 – Meeting new goals

Corin is continuing to gain weight well, and is up to 6 pounds, 7.6 oz. He has been doing well with his new eating schedule. He was actually feeling pretty good last night, so he ate two full bottles in back-to-back feedings (I think of him as an animal in a zoo every time I call it a ‘feeding’). This was a big step for him, as it was the first time that he was able to get through an entire meal without any feeding tube support; and he did it twice in a row. Ebony, one of our favorite nurses, was there for both meals and left up the pictured message to brag on our boy.

Later in the day we had another lactation consultant join us for mealtime. She said that Corin and Kristi are doing great together during breastfeeding and that he does very well latching on. Now that we have had a bit of instruction and a bit more experience picking up on the cues that he gives about what he wants at mealtime, it is a much more enjoyable and rewarding experience.

Our friend Erica came to visit and spend time with Kristi at the hospital this evening since I had to leave town for one night for court tomorrow morning. So it worked out very well for Erica to get to see Corin and Kristi to have some company on what can be long days at the hospital.

We’ve got some video below of Corin as he was waking up for mealtime. Enjoy!

Day 13 – Strong heart…

As I posted earlier today, the results of Corin’s echo-cardiogram came in today and everything is fine. What they heard was the common type of murmur that lots of babies have and that usually just goes away over time. Even if it doesn’t go away, it doesn’t pose any threat or cause any problems. So that was our good news of the day.

Our less than good news was that Kristi and I have had some unrealistic expectations about how fast Corin is going to take to eating everything for himself. That led to unrealistic expectations about when he was going to be coming home. He has been doing a good job taking to the breast, and a good job drinking from the bottle. But he has yet to eat a full meal either way, and gets tired out by the end. This is completely understandable, considering it is the most strenuous activity he has ever tried in his life. It was just a bit frustrating today as we reconciled our hopes with the realities of his abilities.

So the course we are on now is that he gets every other meal through his feeding tube. One the meals we feed him, he starts on either the breast or the bottle until he stops eating. Then he gets the rest of that meal through the tube. That has been going very well, as the extra rest he gets during his feeding tube meals gives him more energy to get through most of his bottle/breast meals. Kristi also got to meet with a couple feeding specialists today, who gave us a lot of good pointers and taught us ways to read his cues about eating.

Overall he is progressing well, and is right on track for a premature baby his age. They said that most babies (boys in particular) don’t fully develop all of their eating reflexes and coordination until the 37^th week. We will hit the 37^th week this coming Monday. So while we were hoping for a nice Mother’s Day gift of bringing our baby home, it looks like the reality is that we will be living in the hospital for at least another week or so. We have come a long way already and have overcome quite a few obstacles already. Today was just a day to be thankful for those accomplishments and to look forward to the next steps.

The day did end on a high note, with visits from Grandma, Pop and Lola. I also got to put on his little crab outfit, which is one of my favorites!

Day 13 - Echo update

I'll post more later, I just wanted to let followers know that Corin's echo results came back and everything is fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing that will cause any problems.