Day 33 - Keeping On

Temporary Cannula

I skipped a couple of days because there really was nothing to report. Milo is still on his CPAP until Wednesday when he will come off (and go onto a cannula instead if he still needs help which will be much nicer but is something they can only do once the baby is 34 weeks old or more). He is still in the NICU until his breathing is under control and he is gaining weight and handling his feeds well. He is up to 4 lbs 4 oz.

There are likewise, until today, not many good new photos because with the CPAP on, every photo looks pretty much the same. Today however, we had a new nurse practitioner who told us he could come off the CPAP and go onto a high flow cannula to practice nursing. We were very excited because a different nurse had told us we would have to wait until he was done with the CPAP. They put him on the cannula and he managed to latch several times and even sucked briefly before falling asleep. This was just practice so Shelly made sure she didn't have any milk available because he wouldn't be able to handle that yet.

We have gotten into a new pattern of holding him twice per day. One of us in the morning and one of us in the afternoon before returning home for the night. It is really nice to get so much time for him but it means we don't get much daylight to do anything else (we put off grocery shopping two days in a row). When we arrived this morning however, Milo was seeming a little sensitive to touch and had just been fussed with a bit by his nurses and physical therapist so we decided to forgo the morning hold and go shopping instead. It worked out really well and we both managed to hold him in the afternoon with the help of our nurse who changed his diaper as we traded off so I could continue to hold him longer.

Our biggest focus for Milo now is for him to learn how to breathe unassisted. We are also focusing on preparing the house for him to join us in the near future. We still need a few critical items from our registry. We will be ordering everything next week to make sure it arrives in time for us to set it up so if you have been meaning to help us out by buying something from the registry, now is a good time.

(In case any one is wondering... I managed to create several drops of milk recently! I am looking forward to having my chance to nurse Milo).

Video of Milo with the Hiccoughs 

Bonus photo of my home life now