Day 28 - Four Weeks Old

We were woken up late this morning by a phone call from an OHSU nurse. Any kind of call from them immediately makes us worry but this one was great news. They caught us totally off guard by telling us they were going to pay to fly Milo back to the Medford hospital... today! This very rarely happens as it is super expensive and insurance will not cover the cost of sending a baby to a facility with a lower level of care. However, OHSU had just filled up to the brim and they were juggling to find space for the babies who really needed the extra level of care. Another baby was flying to OHSU from Medford so they shipped Milo back on the return flight with Medford's staff after they dropped off the other baby.

Milo had his first eye exam this morning before he left Portland to check for ROP (an eye condition that affects premature babies). His results were totally normal - but it can develop over time so he has a follow-up in two weeks. He did not take kindly to his eye exam however and cried a lot, threw up a lot, and started having more trouble breathing for the next couple hours. They tell us it is not unusual for babies to respond that way. We know he is fine but it is too bad he is having breathing issues now because that means he has to stay on the CPAP for at least another couple day (he was having dips and spells periodically even before the eye exam).

As per grandma Judy's suggestion, we had prepared a thank you card and little bag of chocolates to give to the nurses before we left but we forgot to bring it to the hospital on our last trip there. The staff at the Ronald McDonald House was nice enough to say we could leave it with them and they would get it to the nurses. We brought all our stuff down to the car (leaving only the chocolates and thank you card addressed to the OHSU hospital staff that we were planning on handing off to the Ronald McDonald crew when they did the final check of our room during check-out). As we walked down the hall with all our stuff, one of the housekeeping staff saw us and asked if we were checking out. We said "yes, but we're not quite done yet" (possible language barrier) and she booked it straight down the hall to our room giving both Shelly and me an anxious feeling. Sure enough, after we loaded the car and headed back to our room, the chocolate was gone (but the card addressed to the OHSU Staff was still there). We would like to think that she did not understand and thought we had just abandoned the chocolate there. It makes sense that once a guest checks out, whichever housecleaning staff gets there first can have whatever is left behind. We were fairly upset for a bit though because it was specialty chocolate that we wanted the nurses to have.

Shelly put together a small gift box of goodies from the Ronald McDonald storage including some snacks and cookies instead and we left it with the card for the Ronald McDonald staff to take to the NICU.

The Thank You Card and Chocolates In Question

Once we came to terms with the lost chocolate, our road trip back was uneventful and very nice. It took us a lot longer to get on the road than we had expected just because we had to keep interrupting our work to pump (that made the road trip longer than usual too). Though longer than we are used to, it was all super easy and we were pretty happy the whole way. We ended up arriving at the Medford hospital around 12:30AM. We had a nice trip though and spent the drive listening to "The Male Brain" which was very interesting and gave us some insight into little boys that we may be able to apply when Milo is older. Milo had an uneventful flight as well and was all wrapped up and cozy when we arrived to check on him. We only stayed for a couple of minutes before returning home!

Suzanne and Megan and my mom put in a lot of work to make sure our side of the house was pristine when we arrived home. The kitchen counters were cleaner than I have ever seen them and there were clean sheets on our bed. Everything was soooo clean it was amazing! (Thank you so much!!!) We settled in, figured out the bed situation to accommodate our night time pump sessions and were asleep by 2AM.