Day 10 - Pumped

Today we found out his head ultrasound was totally normal! They do another one closer to term but with this one looking so good, it is very likely he'll have a totally normal one then too. I am so relieved. This was one of those tests I had read about in my preemie research and heard other preemie parents talking about as one of the indicators of long-term problems. Milo shows every sign of being able to develop into a normal baby/child/human.

His lung is still giving him issues and the nurses are at this moment trying a technique where they push air into his lungs at a bit of an extended rate compared to the CPAP to see if that can get it open. The nurse practitioner says that since he seems to be doing fine with breathing and oxygenation, we will probably just try less invasive solutions and keep an eye on him instead of trying to expand the lung through intubation.

I got to hold him today! They transfered him on his tiny cushion and set him on my lap. It takes a lot of effort by our nurse and an assistant to pin all his cords to his cushion, adjust all the tubes and CPAP, and get his IV in place to carefully move him. But they did it and I got to sit with him on my lap for over an hour.

Nurses valiantly adjusting cords/tubes/monitors while I look at Milo

I have started pumping every time Shelly does to see if I can create some milk for Milo and have the opportunity to breast feed him when he is older. It is much harder for women who have not been pregnant to create milk but it is possible and after 3 days, I am making some promising progress. There are two rooms here for pumping women. They are private with a door that closes and a sink for washing out the pump equipment afterwards. It is a little haven and the only place in the hospital we can really relax and be alone. There is a whiteboard on each door where you can 'reserve' the room by putting your last name and the time frame you will be using it. The nurse who showed us the rooms said we can use it for 30 minute at a time. It's funny how much we can interact with other mom's through no more than just these whiteboards.

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"E.E. just put her name and not a time frame and now she's just napping in the room."
"Yeah, but she leaves if anyone knocks because they need the room."
"That's a clever plan."

"Large wasn't in the room when the board said she should be but then she adjusted her timeframe to be later with a note saying she was running late so we have to wait an extra fifteen minutes for our turn."

"Oh, that's nice, the person who reserved a room after us left a 10 minute buffer in case we need a little more time."

"Hey, that lady marked off more than half an hour, can we do that?"

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We can't believe we've been here five days already. On Monday Milo will have his contrast study where they will put dye down his throat and watch its progress through his intestines to make sure there are no abnormalities and then, if that goes well, we can start him on Shelly's milk again. After a couple of days of observation on milk, we can take out the tubes in his stomach and begin dropping his IV calorie intake! Then hopefully, it will all be healing and growing until we get to take him home (or transfer back to Medford, we are not yet sure which).