I stopped by to see Logan this morning because I had a meeting with a lactation consultant as a follow up. She told me that Logan was old enough to try non-nutritive feeding - aka practice breast-feeding. But that has to be done 30 minutes after the last pumping, so I couldn't do it at that time. We set up for me to pump in the NICU when Jesse and I came back and then try the non-nutritive feeding after that. I stayed and changed Logan's diaper - it was full of pee - but then left after that. I think I overdid it a little bit yesterday and this morning, so I decided to stay on the couch for most of the afternoon with my heating pad.
The good news is that Logan's bilirubin levels went down and they are taking off the bili lights at 8:00 tonight. Fingers crossed his levels stay down! If he can stay out from under the lights, then he may be able to slowly move out of his pod. The nurse said that he weighs enough to try to let him begin regulating his own body temperature. Soon he may get to wear clothes! So as a reward, Jesse and I went to Carter's this evening and bought two preemie outfits and two newborn. The preemies say they go up to 5lbs and the newborn from 5-8. They are super cute, but I may have to exchange some of them because one is not a onesie, and he really needs to be able to wear something with snaps because of all of his wires.
The not as good news is that he had three apnea episodes over the night, so the doctor wanted to give him a little extra pressure in his breathing. He's not on oxygen or anything, but the pressure is to help keep everything open so he doesn't have an episode. The nurse was surprised that the doctor decided to do that, he hadn't had any episodes for the morning. Hopefully he will have that taken out soon. In order for him to go home, the week he will be discharged he can't have any episodes.
Feeding wise he is doing well with his slowly increased amounts. They are increasing the breast milk again tonight to I think 14cc a feeding. They estimated that it will take a good 10 days for him to be off of the iv. In the meantime, according to the lactation specialist, he should actually be ready to start nutritive feeding this week - so actual breastfeeding. I have an appointment with them to try that on Thursday, so we'll see how that goes. We're still waiting to hear from the doctor what she (or he depending on the day) think about it.
Jesse and I went over to the hospital together this afternoon. He had a doctor's appointment (a reschedule from the one my pre-term labor interrupted last week) and received his DTaP booster. I had mine in the hospital before being discharged - my arm felt like it had been punched for a few days. He picked me up and we got to the hospital where I pumped and Jesse changed Logan's diaper. The nurse said he had a super poopy diaper at his 2:00 changing, but for Jesse it was just pee. I'm pretty sure he appreciated that. Hehe! We tried the non-nutritive feeding with him. Without being too descriptive, for most of the practice, Logan just stared at my boob with this look on his face saying, "Now what I am supposed to do?" He actually didn't do too horrible and looked so cute and little down there. After a few minutes, I just held him skin-to-skin. Then Jesse held him. We read him another French story - this time about Le Petit Dragon (The Little Dragon, in case it wasn't obvious...).
On our way out, the nurse handed us a bag of Logan's laundry. She said we should wash his laundry and bring it back. That's when she told us about his clothes and such. We need to find little hats for him and get him some blankets. The good thing is that we can use this laundry and let the animals smell it for a day or two, then wash it and take it back to the hospital. We want to start preparing them for their new little brother. We brought a blanket home on Sunday and let Yoda take a sniff. Here's a picture of that:
Every day we look forward to seeing his improvements. We have to remind ourselves that baby steps are good! I do find myself looking forward to future dates, like doctor's appointments, book club, etc., because I know once those days are here, he will be even closer to coming home. In the meantime, we have to work on getting his room ready! Jesse and his friend Jason started moving some of the furniture from the garage back into rooms. We've got some items on order to decorate his room. We don't have a crib, but at this point, with how tiny he is, he won't really need one for awhile. We are going to borrow the Wade family cradle - which has been used by many a Wade baby, I think even Jesse's grandfather.
Here's something that we're going to have printed and framed for our guy:
Well, that's the latest update on our little man. We didn't really take many new pictures today, but here's the one Jesse took:
No comments:
Post a Comment