Day 6 - Midday update because Yay!

We heard from the doctor as soon as we came in today. She said he is doing fantastic (her words not mine). His chest shunt will be coming out today and they are weaning him off of the intubation so they can take that out today or tomorrow too! His two IVs in his feet will be replaced with a PICC (a longer IV that can handle higher calorie passthrough so he can continue to grow). The PICC comes with some risks as it is a minor surgery where they thread the needle through a peripheral vein to just next to the top of his heart. This will be able to stay in until he no longer needs the IV and is eating all his calories which is much nicer for him than the current IVs that come out and need to be replaced often. This hospital got an award for their extremely low infection rates with PICCs and are very experienced in it (the nurse said they once went 2 years without a single infection!) so we are pretty confident it will go well. The PICC will not affect our ability to touch/snuggle/hold him when the stomach drains come out.

This hospital is also great on skin-to-skin care and even offered to lower his bed to chair height so we can rest our arms in there next to him and snuggle even though we can't pick him up yet. We are VERY excited for this later today. They also gave us something called a "Snoodle" which is a small blankie with a soft ball at one end (designed to look like a little head as if the blanket is the body). The sole purpose of the Snoodle is for mom to keep it in her shirt and then let the baby have it next to him for the extent of his stay. They also said we can dab breast milk in his mouth so he can have the taste of it. We are so happy with the care he is receiving and how thoughtful they have been of us. Today we tried to imagine what it would be like if we were having to pay for all the care we are receiving and our minds boggled (lodging, food, healthcare, pump equipment, private rooms for pumping). What is a word that means much much more than just grateful? That's what we are for our health insurance and the wonderful people here who are always stopping to ask us how we are doing and if we have heard of this or that amenity.

We got a room in the Ronald McDonald House and will get to move in this afternoon! I cannot wait to have a room again where I can unpack and feel stable. Carrying all our stuff around and repacking each night has been tiring.

Shelly and I are so happy and optimistic about the progress of our baby. At times we flinch, hoping this is not just another "up" on the roller coaster of having a premature baby. It is crazy to look back on the ups and downs we've had so far and think about how scared we were for the intubation and then how that seemed less scary and how terrible the chest shunt felt. And now, after the surgery, how minimal the chest shunt seems. We really hope that nothing else comes up that makes the surgery seem minor in comparison.

*Today I was talking to the nurse about how Milo will have a matching scar to Shelly and I mentioned how my brother has a matching scar too. The nurse and I spent a moment speculating about wether Milo's stomach fluid might be related to what my brother had. I was reassuring her that is seemed totally different when Shelly reminded us that Milo doesn't actually share genes with Daniel. He seems like so much a part of me that I forget that sometimes.