Tiny hand

Tiny hand
November 20, 2010 (one day old)

Lilypie Premature Baby tickers

Lilypie Premature Baby tickers

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Rooming in

Forgive me if this post is somewhat incoherent, but I'm operating on even less sleep than usual after having spent the night at the hospital, sharing a room with Cayden.

Honestly, though, he did great.  He's sleeping between 4 and 5 hours between feedings (from the start of one to the start of the next) which is amazing, but factor in that it takes him a good 40 or more minutes to take a bottle, then I have to pump for 30 minutes, then wash everything and try to fall back asleep while being hyper alert to his every noise, it doesn't leave much time for me to actually sleep!

I arrived at the hospital around 6:45 on Sunday night but he was snoozing away.  He didn't wake up until about 9:15, but then he breast fed and took a good bit from the bottle as well.  We moved into our private room around midnight.  He was hooked up to the monitors and oxygen so the nurses could watch his stats on their screen in the main area.  There was a surprisingly comfortable queen-size bed, a sink, a rocking chair, and a fridge for milk, but that's about it.  No bathroom, no TV, no fridge for your food or room service in case you might want to eat something while you're there.  If you need to go to the bathroom or leave the room for any reason, you have to call the nurse to come sit there while you're gone.

Anyway, he woke up again around 2 and then at 7 in the morning.  I fed him a bottle both times but didn't breast feed him on the nurse's advice.  (He gets more calories doing less work by taking a bottle, which means he'll sleep longer and gain more weight.)  We didn't have any choking or desat episodes all night, and he slept very soundly, thank goodness!

Nurse Shawna came in on the day shift and rolled him back to his pod around 10:30 in the morning.  I was starving and hoped to run down to the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat at that point, but as soon as I got dressed, I went to check on him and got bombarded with activity.  First, they told me that the docs had just done rounds and said that he would be discharged on Tuesday.  This sent me into a tizzy of panic - we had told them that Tuesday would be pretty much impossible to take him home because Jason HAD to be out of town for work that day and there was no way I could do it myself.  I thought we had it straight that they wouldn't discharge him until Wednesday?!  After about 20 minutes of anxiety, Nurse Shawna said she cleared it up with the docs and that they would be able to wait until Wednesday.  Whew!

Now can I get something to eat?  Nope.  Developmental therapy had just arrived and I needed to be there to work on Cayden's exercises with him.  I haven't had much practice with him as he's gotten bigger, so I really needed to go over the exercises to make sure I know how to do them properly.  So we did some tilting, tucking, rolling, and stretching for about 30 minutes. 

Maybe now I can go get some breakfast?  Nope.  Now it was time for Cayden to eat breakfast (again!)  I wanted to take the opportunity to breast feed him before I left for the day.  So he nursed for 40 minutes.  Then he took a bottle for 20 minutes.  Hungry boy!

Food for momma now?  Nope.  The resident showed up and barraged me with facts and questions about things related to discharge.  By this point, I was deliriously hungry and tired and nothing was sinking in, but I managed to scribble down some notes on a paper towel and hoped I got it all straight.

I made phone calls to Jason and to set up our first pediatrician appointment and FINALLY escaped to the cafeteria for lunch (I had long since missed breakfast!)  Grabbed some food and headed back to the rooming in room to scarf it down while packing up my stuff there. 

After inhaling some food, I went back to Cayden's pod with my suitcase and packed up some of the things he could live without for the next two days.  While I was there, Nurse Shawna was putting in his eye drops for his bi-weekly eye exam and rambling on about more things I needed to know and do from the discharge checklist.  Apparently, he had and passed his hearing screening exam at the beginning of February.  Yea!  She set up a consult with the home oxygen company for Wednesday.  She rattled off a list of prescriptions I'd need to get filled before discharge and reminded me to buy a supply of specific Dr. Brown's bottles and nipples.  She showed me how to mix up his breast milk recipe.  She mentioned they'd be doing his car seat challenge later that afternoon.  He has to sit in his car seat for 90 minutes while they make sure he doesn't stop breathing.  I guess they can have a tough time with it because they can slump down or sideways while sitting there which can cut off their oxygen just enough to cause problems.

I finally left the hospital around 1:45.  I needed to swing by work since it would likely be the last chance I'd have to tie up loose ends there before Cayden comes home.  That was tough to do:  I am officially done with working (for a paycheck, at least) until further notice so I can stay home to be a full-time nurse and mommy.

Later in the evening, I found out that Cayden passed his car seat challenge and his eye exam came back unchanged (no evidence of ROP, zone III in one eye; stage 2, zone III in the other).  We'll need to follow up at the outpatient clinic again in two weeks. 

All he has to do now is keep nippling enough (a minimum of 380 ccs in 24 hours), gain weight (he hadn't been weighed when I checked in Monday night, but as of Sunday, he was up to 7 lbs. 1 oz.), and not have any more 'significant' bradys or desats, and we'll be on our way home on Wednesday!

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