Day 25, Wednesday, December 8

Today Tate weighs 3 lbs 13 oz- exactly one pound over his birth weight! Several of the nurses have commented today and yesterday as to how much bigger he looks. When I got here today I was standing at his isolette watching him sleep, thinking “he looks like a baby.” At first he was just so tiny and wrinkly but now he is really starting to fill out. Just makes me want to hold him even more! I have definitely become much more comfortable holding him, moving him, touching and kissing him. At first they told us not to pat or rub his back because that was too much stimulation, but now that he’s bigger we can do those things. I’ve even rocked him in the chair a few times when he’s gotten a little fussy and as soon as I do that, he calms down. I’m also getting better about the monitors. Of course, it helps that Tate hardly set them off at all today. That makes it easier to not worry about them when they aren’t dinging all the time.


Tate was too tired today to practice his latching. I only got him to open his eyes once or twice and otherwise he was asleep. He did take 10 ml from his finger feeding though. Then I kangarooed him for an hour like we usually do. He slept all day which is all he ever does, but he slept really good. NO wiggling around and his vitals were good all day.

There are so many new babies in the NICU this week. It’s been loud and crazy. The new little girl next to Tate still cries a lot, as do the twins. Devon, the little boy next to Tate on the other side, has breathing problems and his monitors go off a lot and he chokes. Plus there are still 3 more in our pod, and 2 of them have required a lot of intervention these last few days. The nurses have been busy, there have been extra nurses around helping, and the babies have been crying. When Jamie came up for the 9 pm feeding Tate’s nurses were busy with one of the little babies, she wasn’t doing very good. So he had to wait till midnight to do Tate’s finger feed and hold him.

Although the NICU has been hopping, I actually had the thought that today was kind of boring. But boring is good. It’s funny how the first 2 weeks we lived for every 3 hours when they would do an assessment. We tried to be at as many of them as we could just to watch them check his heartbeat, turn him over and change his diaper. Then we’d learn if he had any new orders. Now, his orders don’t change much. Nothing new happens. He just eats and sleeps and besides getting to feed him twice a shift, nothing new is going on. We do still try to be at as many assessments as we can, since that’s when we can change his diaper and maybe get to hold him afterwards. And Jamie always stays for the midnight assessment since that’s when they weigh him so we can see how much he’s grown. But really we are just waiting for him now - waiting for him to grow. He’s got to get bigger and figure out the feeding and then we can take him home.

Tate - 3 days old

Tate today - can you tell he's put on a pound?

3 days old

today - 22 days old