chuggin' along

As of last night things are still going really well. The day after he started eating the nurses let me breastfeed him again. It was a very scary thing to hold him again when he looks so broken in the middle. But by the second feeding he was back to laying on his side without a problem. The problem, was, that after I left he wasn't eating from a bottle well so while dad and I were gone for the night they put in a NasoGastric tube to feed him. (they did call us to let us know they were doing it) And yesterday when I got in there and tried to feed him again he would eat for a little bit, but then he would just lay there and cry. The nurse told me "sometimes babies just cry" but He just doesn't do that. In the two months I had him he only ever cried for a reason. Sometimes he just wanted to be held, but if your holding him and he's still crying there's a problem. After a bit he coughed up a whole bunch of frothy white mucus. The nurse said "Oh, he just needed to cough something up." Duh. The thing that irritated me was that she didn't listen when I told her that something was wrong. Clearing his lungs was something she couldn't have helped with but she could have listened to me instead of totally discounting what I said. I was probably a touch irritable too from trying to sleep in a chair at the baby's bedside again. I'm not going to to let myself be bullied into that again though. They have plenty of milk in the freezer.

Anyway, they pulled out the arterial line, and both of the remaining drains. And shortly before we transfered him out of the PCICU someone suggested that he might be irritated by the NG tube. So I got them to agree to pull out the tube after they ran a feeding into his stomach so that the next time I could try to get him back on the boob without the tube running down the back of his throat. So Last night he ate beautifully with the tube gone, and I'm hoping that he ate enough from the bottle last night that they didn't put it back in. So with that tube gone the only thing left in him is the PIC line that won't come out till they discharge him. Fine by me sine it allows access both ways and they won't have to stick him again. The poor kid has Mommy's skin and veins.

So in this ward they are going to be concentrating on getting him ready to go home. The main thing that they'll be looking for is how well he's eating. He has to be putting on weight again before he can leave. When this all started he weighed 10 lbs 1 oz, last night he weighed in at 9 lbs 7 oz. Not too bad considering that's he's barely eaten in the last week. We might go home as early as monday, but it'll probably be a little bit longer.

One more cool thing about living at RMH is all of the donations we get. From all of the day-olds at the closest starbucks (including chocolate croissants and cream cheese muffins) to free services from the local businesses. The closest salon offers free haircuts to residents. So I took advantage of it and got a haircut that I really like. I need to take a shower though, and I don't currently have access to a hairdryer so I'm a little sad. When I told all that to the night nurse she asked which salon it was. According to her haircuts there cost "a fortune". So I got the most expensive haircut of my life for free. Cool.

More news later.