Day 6 - Finally Settled

Milo has his chest tube out and is doing well. The first nurse tried once to insert his PICC and couldn't thread it all the way. A while later, a second nurse tried twice more and couldn't either. They say that this is totally normal and happens on some babies. They are trying again this evening maybe on a different vein. I feel bad for him having to be pricked again that many times but he is still on pain medication for his surgery and they told us he didn't seem to mind very much.

We tried out their free "tray service" for the first time. Because we are Milo's parents we can have three meals delivered each day, ordered off a gluten-free menu from the cafeteria. The food is really good.

Shelly's lunch today.

After lunch, they had finished poking Milo for the PICC so we went back to his bedside. During the procedure they curtain him off and all wear masks and gowns to help lower the risk of infection. The nurse who was assigned to Milo today is very sweet. She lowered his bed to chair height and helped us move him to the edge of his bed so Shelly could sit with him and slide her hands under him for snuggles without removing him from the bed completely. Since we haven't been able to have skin-to-skin holding time since before the intubation and chest shunt the snuggle time was much needed.

Shelly "holding" Milo at OHSU

Milo being held

His little legs draped over her arm

After we held him for a bit, we headed out to check into our room at the Ronald McDonald House (RMH). So many amenities, where do I start? As we arrived they told us they had someone make dinner tonight and invited us to have some. We weren't hungry yet so they let us put some in a Tupperware and take it back to our room for later. We had a yummy salad and pasta (that's right, they had a gluten-free pasta out). After we snagged some dinner, we had our orientation. We are set to stay in this room until the day after Milo is released from OHSU with full access to all the following:

• An indoor pool and hot tube
• A gym
• A laundry room
• A breakfast buffet every morning
• A fully stocked pantry and fridge with foods we can take back to our room and prepare (in our fully equipped kitchen)
• Volunteers who prepare meals for everyone on occasion
• A portrait photographer who may be able to come back to the NICU for professional photos
• A printer for printing photos of Milo (and a scrapbooking room with everything you would need)
• A full shelf of movies (including so many fun children's films) that we can choose from to take back to our room in the evening
• Periodic activities including something called Pile of Puppies which is exactly what it sounds like

There are so many great things to do, the irony is that the people staying here mostly spend all their free time at the hospital at a bedside. When we were taking the tour I was really impressed but mostly thinking that we won't be spending much time here, maybe some evening movies in our room and sleeping. Other than that, we'll be at the hospital all day.

I'm so extremely grateful for the wonderful accommodations (the hotel last night was subpar so this is fabulous). I would never have guessed the amount of relief there would be in just knowing that I don't have to think about taking care of us while Milo is in the NICU and I never would have imagined there was so much support here for parents going through what we are.

I am so happy that this update gets to be more about the amazing things we have in our life and fewer updates about the baby's health (since it is mostly unchanged since the last post - our deepest desire is just for him to have time to heal without anymore interruptions from stupid necessary medical procedures). 

Bonus picture of Milo's scrunchy little face (don't mind the swollen eye - totally normal for babies to have some swelling due to excess fluids given during surgery settling from laying in one position for a while)