Three months old today

Cayden was born three months ago and he's still 8 days away from his original due date.  That is just unbelievable to me.

I decided to take another day off from visiting the NICU on Saturday.  They started the 12-hour ad-lib feeding trial, so I figured it was a reasonable excuse to skip a day and let the nurses see how it goes with him determining when he wants to eat and then being able to take as much as he wants from a bottle.  I haven't called to check on him since early this afternoon, but at that time, he had taken 55 ccs at his 9 a.m. feeding.  Soon after that, the doctors did their morning rounds and decided it was time to pull his feeding tube and see how he did.  He woke up on his own at 11:45 a.m., screaming and hungry, then took another 55 ccs from a bottle, so he was right on track.  I'll be calling again here soon to see how he's done since then, so I will post the update later.

There were a couple of other things that happened on Friday that I didn't mention in the 'care conference' post.  Jason and I met with the early intervention services coordinator.  We developed a list of goals we want to achieve in first three months after Cayden comes home.  She will write up what's called the individualized family services plan that will spell out what services Cayden will receive to help reach those goals and then the care providers will start implementing services within 28 days of his discharge.

We also met with the developmental therapist to do a round of therapy with Cayden.  It's been awhile since either one of us has been present during a session, so the exercises have changed and evolved as he has grown and developed.  We will be responsible for doing these exercises with him once he's home, so Jason recorded the session so we have a video to watch to help us remember exactly what to do and how to do it!

Twice while I was breast feeding Cayden, his monitor suddenly started making that heart-stopping sound - he was desatting and his heart rate dropped because he was choking on milk.  The first time it happened, we were talking with the services coordinator and I was a bit distracted, so I didn't realize what was happening.  Once I realized it was his monitor that was alarming, I instinctively sat him up and started rubbing his back.  It seemed like forever, but I'm sure it was only a few seconds before he came out of it.  I was a wreck - it scared me like you wouldn't believe and I felt so guilty for not paying better attention to him while he was nursing.  The second time it happened, I was watching his every move - his sucking had started to slow and I think he might have dozed off with a mouthful of milk.  Nurse Shawna reassured us that the episodes were completely normal, it was not my fault, and I did exactly what I was supposed to do.  Later, I found out that although the brady alarm went off, it was only slightly below his lower tolerance range, so the episodes really weren't that serious.  She also promised us he would not be allowed to go home until he stopped having the episodes (as he matures and gets more 'practice', this shouldn't happen), so that was a relief.