Day 22 - We're Back In

We got to see him again today! Shelly was still feeling good after a full day of no symptoms so we returned today to spend time with Milo and hold him. He had his last tube taken out of his stomach and is now so much easier to move and hold. Also, after his blood transfusion they tested him without his CPAP again to see if the earlier difficulties were just caused by anemia.

We have our favorite nurse back after a week of not seeing her and she let us take what she called a "tube vacation" and took his feeding cord out while Shelly held him. No CPAP and no feeding tube meant a whole face clear of medical gadgets - we were thrilled. After Shelly held him, they put an NG feeding tube in (this is a smaller tube that goes in through the nose instead of the OG which goes in through the mouth) and set out to watch him to make sure he did alright without the CPAP for the rest of the night.

While Shelly was holding Milo, his physical therapist stopped by and walked me through a little infant massage course she teaches. We used baby dolls to practice the different kinds of touch that are beneficial to use with infants. We are supposed to wait until he is alert (eyes open and looking around) but not agitated (limbs calm with little movement) so it could be a while until I get to put my new skills into practice. Milo very rarely has his eyes open (we think the CPAP hat may have something to do with this as it squishes his face and makes it difficult for him to open them).

We went back to the hotel for dinner with the intention of returning in the evening so I could hold him for a bit but it was raining and I hate to drive in the rain and dark. We were both pretty tired so instead of holding him at 8 like we had planned we went to bed at 8:30pm. It was great to get such a chance to catch up on sleep. We are still both waking up every three hours to pump so if we don't go to bed early, we end up needing to sleep in to make up for the disturbed sleep.

Milo's Tube Vacation

Great Hair Shot on Mama

The first thing he did was bury his face in Shelly's chest

Doing so well!