Off to a Good Start

I called Ian's nurse at about 5:30 this morning, and I am very pleased to report that he had a very calm night. He keeps peeing and pooping, but generally he just did a lot of sleeping last night. His weight dropped one more ounce, but they haven't been concerned about his weight loss yet. Hopefully they still won't be concerned about that. They can't be upset with me about it as they are in charge of how much breast milk plus formula he gets at each feeding. Although I am looking forward to the time when he receives all his nutrition directly from me, I know it will be a bit stressful when that happens. His bilirubin count dropped. That is also very good news. I'll find out when they do the rounds (hopefully I will actually be present for that this morning!) whether he's still under the lights or not.

My main focus today is that he will make progress in learning how to nurse. I am sure the lactation nurses will help me with that - presuming the doctor gives us the full green light to work on that today. He did latch on twice on the right side yesterday evening. It was a wonderful feeling. Nursing is a million times better than pumping. I've been forcing myself to get used to even the highest setting of the hospital's pump (which is much stronger than the highest setting of my electric pump) so I am quite certain that I will be feeling no pain when Ian nurses. I think I've toughened myself up pretty well over the last few days. I'm also hoping that we can move to the demo room in the near future. If he continues to do well, I think the chances that they'll agree to that will be pretty good.

I added pictures to last night's post. We had one visitor yesterday - my friend, Donna (shown in the first photo of my last post). Paul hasn't seen Ian or myself since Monday night. I am hopeful we'll get to see him today although right now as I write this he is en route to PSU to take his last final exam. I am praying he'll do well on it. The second and third photos were both taken yesterday. The second shows him on his belly with the CPAP, arterial line, etc, and the third shows him free of all of that. YAY! He still has two black and blue eyelids, but his bruising continues to improve. Everyone who sees him seems to comment about how it looks like he lost a fight already. Poor guy! It turns out in addition to the fact they also had trouble getting him out of me (ditto for Nadia), he was also face up like Nadia was. It seems my babies know to go down head first, but they don't seem to put their heads in the ideal position. That makes me feel better about the decision to go with a c-section instead of attempting VBAC.

I won't be getting much paid leave since I had him so early. However, if I had given birth vaginally, I would have ended up with less than one week of paid sick leave. I at least get 2 extra weeks off since I had this incision. I will be going back to work in mid February instead of mid March. Financially it's not as good as it means I go back to getting paid 50% five weeks sooner than I would have if he hadn't come before January 8th, but one financial perk is that we get the extra tax deduction this year. I have had many people mention that to me - as an advantage of giving birth in December. Well I still would have rathered have him in January. A tax deduction doesn't compensate for the stress of having a baby in the NICU in my opinion. However if we're all home for Christmas, it will be special to be a family of four. He is a most wonderful Christmas gift!!!

Well the day has gotten off to a good start, and hopefully in general it will be a much better day than yesterday. It's time for me to pump, have breakfast, and get myself ready to head over to the NICU. I am planning on spending most of the day at the hospital although I'll probably come back at least once in the middle of the day for a nap (and maybe eat lunch here at the RM House if the doctors visit Ian prior to noon). Even if the shuttle involves a long wait, I don't plan to attempt to walk the distance in light of my swollen feet. I think though that after the 8pm feeding I will likely come back and stay here during the night. Although I made the trek every three hours when I stayed here with Nadia, I just don't know if I am up to that this time. I might wait until we're in the demo room (or at home if we never go to the demo room) to nurse him throughout the night. We shall see.