Back on Skin to Skin holding
Milo weighs 3 lbs 1 ounce today
Contrast study delayed a day due to availability of x-ray
Today we arrived at the NICU to find that Milo is doing well. Since it is a Monday we have a different nurse than we had over the weekend. She surprised us by telling us she thought we could hold Milo skin to skin today. We were so excited! Shelly held him for an hour and a half against her chest despite the belly tubes still being in place. The other nurse had told us we should wait until they come out which will probably be another week so you can imagine how happy we were to hear that we didn't have to wait. The nurse today said that he really enjoyed sleeping on his stomach, once she got him all tucked in and held her hand on him for a couple of minutes to soothe him, so the skin to skin hold would probably not bother him either. He settled right down after a couple of minutes and was the calmest little guy the whole time Shelly was holding him.
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| Baby Milo hiding under his heated ducky blanket |
They switched him to a Tylenol suppository a couple of days back. The nurse who was assigned to administer it protested because you have to cut the suppository into fourths for the right dose and it was a bit crumbly and hard to use properly. At the time, the doctor who ordered it said that it was literally $1,000 cheaper than the type that could be given via the IV. The reason they switched him in the first place was because he was being weaned off of his other pain meds and had reached the lowest dose of that medication so this was next step (either suppository or IV Tylenol). Well today there was also a new doctor and the orders changed to the IV version, through his PICC Line so there really is no reason other than cost that we wouldn't do it. Our minds boggle at how much his stay would cost us if it wasn't covered by insurance - at $1,000 per tylenol dose.... I would be really interested to see the total bill after everything is said and done, his and Shelly's.
The contrast study was scheduled for today however the x-ray folks couldn't get him scheduled in until tomorrow morning which means everything we had timed out will be one day behind "schedule". Tomorrow morning they will do the bottom to top contrast study and then the following day they will do the top to bottom study. After that, if everything looks normal, they will reintroduce him to food and start removing stomach drains!
We also got a visit from the folks who do premature baby eye exams. There is a heightened likelihood that their eyes will be prone to a disorder (the same one that caused Stevie Wonder to go blind) when they are born early. Luckily now they can test for it and correct it with laser surgery when it is in its extreme form. This condition (ROP) is super likely to occur in a mild form that will correct itself so they do several exams over the course of their first couple months of life to track the progress and make sure it doesn't need correction. The person telling us about the condition mentioned that they used to treat it through freezing the abnormal blood vessels behind the eye that caused the issue but now they can be much more precise with lasers. We are hoping of course that he is one of the many many preemie babies who does not need intervention.
Despite getting a lot of good news today (skin to skin care back on the menu, a great care package of baby clothes from home, a coffee card from Mark and MJ, getting me on the nonrestricted meal tray because I am pumping, and more) I was disappointed that I didn't get to touch Milo more and ended up being a bit down when we left. This is probably a normal reaction that a lot of mothers go through when they have babies in the NICU, I just want to hold him and snuggle him and touch his little hands but I keep not giving myself the option because he is tucked in all cozy and I know he needs his rest. In any case, tomorrow I'll be doing skin to skin with him for the first time (if all goes well and it will fit in with his busy followup x-ray scheduling). I cannot wait until he is totally free of all of his attachments and Shelly and I can hold him as much as our hearts desire.
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| Skin to Skin! For the first time since day 1 |
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| Some of the baby cloths we got sent from a couple sweet friends in Southern Oregon |
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| Fury baby back |
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