Three Weeks Old

My friend, Cheri - the fourth friend/family member to hold Oliver

Yesterday, my friend, Cheri, came and spent 2 hours with Oliver and I in the demo room. She would have held him for more of the time, but his O2 saturation levels kept falling and setting off the alarm. I put him under my shirt, and his numbers would soar up above 95%, which actually is technically "too high." Most days I have been the only one to hold Oliver, but yesterday he was held by three others in addition to me. I wasn't expecting to see Paul yesterday, but he accidently forgot to put the double stroller in his car on Sunday night. He came down and met his dad so they could use the stroller at the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia today. My friend, Donna, (see picture below) also stopped in for a visit while Paul was here. Cheri was Oliver's 10th visitor, and Donna was the 11th. Eight of his visitors have been family members (2 siblings, 2 parents, 1 aunt, and 3 grandparents) and the other three have been my pastor and two friends.

The first available appointment for Oliver to have a room air trial here in the NICU is October 17. I wasn't happy about that because the doctor had estimated he'd need to be on it for 3-4 more weeks, and October 17 is much farther away. I am being trained this morning on using the monitor he'll be sent home with. He has to stay on the monitor for two more weeks after he goes off the oxygen. I guess I'm going to get very good at dressing and undressing him with wires. I am bummed about this in part because I was looking forward to taking a lot more pictures of him once he didn't have the cannula in his nose, etc, but it seems that will be in place for about 7 more weeks. Usually I treasure pictures of my kids, but I pretty much have avoided looking at any that were taken of Nadia and Ian before they lost all the wires, tubes, etc. I know in the grand scheme of life it's not a big deal, but it's sad to me that I might have to wait until November to get pictures of Oliver that don't include these things. I bought a frame to match the two I have for Nadia and Ian which has a space for a picture at birth and then one for each month from 1-12 months old (13 total pictures). I already didn't know what to do about the birth picture for Oliver, and now I'm not sure what I'll do for the one and two month pictures. I don't exactly want to leave those three spaces blank.

Last night at 9pm I let Paul pick what outfit I put on him. He picked the dinosaur sleeper that used to be Ian's (the one Oliver wore briefly on August 15). I should take a picture of him in it today, but I admit I'm struggling emotionally (in other words crying a lot). His weigh-in at 9pm showed he lost 12 grams. His nurse weighed him again at 5:15am in the hopes it would give us a better result, but actually his weight dropped even more (I don't recall the amount). He didn't have any supplements yesterday, but prior to that they had been adding HMF to the EBM to boost the calories. I know there are benefits to the baby from nursing that only happen when the baby exclusively has breastmilk. I had hoped to finally have one baby who only had breastmilk. No dice. It's fairly obvious why I want to go home considering how many weeks I've spent sleeping in a hospital separated from my husband and other two children. At least I am going to be allowed to stay in the demo room for at least one more night. Even if Oliver gains weight today, he's not going to be discharged tomorrow because the doctor wants to see sustained growth not just one day of growth. He said it might be a few days or maybe another week before he's discharged. I know he'll only be 35w tomorrow, but considering yesterday they started to give me all the discharged paperwork (his prescriptions, had me call the pediatrician to set up an appt for Thurs, etc.), it's very discouraging to now be told it might be another week. Tonight will be my 56th night that I've spent away from Paul, Nadia, and Ian over the past 3 months. I had been hoping that Oliver would be discharged by Labor Day. I guess I should go back to praying about that. I had been praying we'd be discharged today, but that isn't happening.

 

The doctor said we could go back to giving him supplements via the tube or give him supplements via the bottle or have me pump first in case he's not getting enough of the hind milk. I wasn't sure what option to pick. I am torn between not wanting him to have a bottle in light of what happened with Nadia as well as wanting to go home ASAP. The doctor said that giving him a bottle wouldn't necessarily speed up our departure because he might not do well with the bottle either (he stops nursing too quickly because he falls asleep with milk running out of his mouth). I asked the doctor which option he would suggest, and he said he thought we should try having me pump first (just remove one ounce) right before nursing Oliver. 

 

I am not sure if it was just coincidental, but he had his worst nursing session in more than a day. So I told the nurse to give him a supplement. Right now (11am on Tuesday) they are giving him 20ml of my milk fortified with Enfacare by tube. It's his first tube feeding since 6pm on Sunday and his first time ever having any Enfacare.  I just feel like a failure. I know rationally this isn't true. I am producing plenty of milk. I usually pump two ounces out after I finish nursing him. It's not that I don't have enough milk. I have been drinking enough water and pumping enough. He's just too weak and small to nurse long enough to get all the nutrition he needs. I know I'm letting this bother me way more than I should, but I so badly wanted to have a smoother start this time around, and the opposite has happened. When I picture myself nursing my baby, I don't picture all the contraptions that are involved right now - the shield, the pieces and parts that have to be cleaned for the pump, labels for the bottles of EBM, etc. I'm sure I could handle this better if I wasn't completely exhausted. I think I get less sleep in the demo room because the desat alarm wakes me up all throughout the night. The upside is that once last night Oliver did wake up and was crying and I took that as a cue to nurse him whereas before his feeding schedule was 100% based on the clock. I wish I could go to sleep and wake up when the five of us are under the same roof. I also feel badly because it would have been really good for Paul if we had come home today. Not only is he at a crunch time with finishing his dissertation, but he also needs to start applying for jobs as some universities have posted adjunct openings for the spring semester as well as tenure track openings beginning August 2013, and the applications are due in the next couple of weeks in some instances. We only had babysitters lined up through tomorrow. I need to start working on finding people to watch Nadia and Ian on Friday and possibly next week as well.