Day 24, Tuesday, December 7

Three weeks. Tate is three weeks old today. When my water broke, the original goal was for me to make it three more weeks before I delivered the baby. Three weeks. I made it three days. Today I have been thinking about how different things would have been if I’d been able to carry him for three more weeks. He would have been bigger, stronger and wouldn’t have had as long of a stay in the NICU. I would have been bored out of my mind lying in that hospital bed for three weeks. But I could have, would have made it. If only Tate had gone along with our plan.


But it has been an incredible three weeks. Getting to watch Tate grow outside the womb instead of just watching my tummy grow has been miraculous. He changes every day and is getting bigger and stronger. Although this is a totally different bonding than new moms normally have with their babies, I think I’ve bonded more with him than I did with Hudson by three weeks. We’ve just gone through so much more together, in such a short amount of time. It’s so amazing seeing these tiny babies, perfectly formed, growing. Not all our as strong as Tate is, some need more help than he did, still others get to go home after just a day or two and I’m jealous watching them do their car seat test and hearing them talk about “rooming in”. I’m ready for that. But I know Tate’s not. But it is hard to try to come home and live a “normal” life when everything reminds me that Tate’s there and I’m not O that I’m here and Tate’s not. But these first three weeks have flown by and I’m hoping the next three will as well. With Christmas coming I’m sure they will. My original “goal” was for Tate to be home by Christmas. Now, with Christmas less than three weeks away I’m not sure that’s so realistic, but I’m still hoping.

Tate was back in a diaper today. I wasn’t too surprised. I thought that nurse yesterday was jumping the gun putting him in clothes. Today’s nurse said it won’t be till he’s closer to 1800 grams (4 lbs) that they’ll start weaning him out of the isolette and into an open bed, and then he’ll have to wear clothes and a hat all the time. But he could be to 4 pounds by the end of the week! So that should start happening soon…

Tate didn’t do great at the breast today but he did really good at his finger feeding. He took 17 ml when I fed him at noon and was sucking really well. It was a frustrating experience though. A new baby came in while he was doing his feeding and our nurse was the first admit, meaning she took the new baby. This baby’s area is right beside Tate’s and she cried and screamed the whole time we were doing our finger feeding – and for quite awhile thereafter. Then the lactation nurse showed up 20 minutes late, so she missed the breastfeeding part, but sat down and proceeded to try to explain nipple shields to me the whole time I’m concentrating on trying to finger feed him. This was my first time to finger feed him all by myself. A nurse usually would hold the syringe for me so I could just concentrate on his latch on my finger, but since she was busy I was doing it all. So I have one finger in his mouth, he’s on a pillow in my lap and the other hand is holding the syringe, the baby next door is screaming and this nurse is sitting there talking to me like there’s nothing else going on. Add to that Tate started d sating about that time as well. So I’m feeding him, watching his monitor and trying to be nice and listen to her talk. By the time she left his pulse ox was dropping really often and into the 70’s, which it hadn’t ever done before. So I told the nurse and since she was busy, another nurse came in and put him back in the isolette. That helped a little at first but then his pulse ox started going lower and lower. After about 10 minutes, she got out the oxygen mask and turned It on. It was about this point I almost freaked out. But I remained calm, and am pretty proud of myself for doing so. I knew he wasn’t in a grave situation and everything would be okay. She ended up giving him what they call “blow by” oxygen. Meaning she just blew the oxygen into his isolette, towards his face, and she only did it for about 20 seconds. After she did that his pulse ox climbed back up into the 90’s and he was fine the rest of the day. But I still didn’t like it. That’s the first “help” he’s had to have to breathe. But the nurses said it was either just too much work for him doing the feedings or the noise from the other baby stressed him out, or maybe a combination of both.

At 3 pm I convinced the nurse to let me kangaroo him since we didn’t get to at noon because of his d sats. She wasn’t real wild about it but since it was my only chance to do so for the day she said we’d see how he did. He was fine the whole hour.

Jamie finger fed him again at 9 pm and he took 21 ml from him. And he must be getting used to the new activity because he gained another 34 grams today. He now weighs 3 lbs. 11.3 oz.

Yesterday when we got there I noticed right away that they had changed the color coding on his monitor. The heartrate used to be blue, respiration was white, pulse ox was green, etc. Well, now his heartrate, the top line on the monitor, is red. I don’t like it. I told Jamie that. He said “don’t look at the monitors” and made me sit in the other chair so I can’t see them. Red, to me, means “stop, bad, alarming, whoa, something’s not right”. I had noticed that the twins monitors were different colors from Tate’s and the new baby that came in today had different colors on hers. So today I asked the nurse if the colors meant something. She said no, the nurses can just change them to whatever they like best, whatever they can see best. So I asked her to change the red. So Tate’s heartrate monitor is now yellow. Much more soothing, and calming…for my heart anyway!