Day 21, Saturday, December 4

“Are you Tate’s mom?”


Best words I heard today. Yep, that’s me. Again, just one of those things I hadn’t thought of yet. I’m Tate’s mom. I like it.

I went up to the NICU at 11 this morning planning on spending most of the day with Tate. We “nursed”, he lasted about 5 minutes before falling asleep, and then I kangarooed him for the rest of the hour. His vitals were all good the whole time. We basically have gotten more used to his heart rate running in the 180’s. The only time it goes up higher is when someone is moving him or doing his assessment. It usually drops back down in the 160’s when he’s sleeping really well. His pulse ox is staying in the normal range most all of the time now. Still has an occasional dip below 90 but not near as often as he was having a few days ago.

By 2 pm I was having a hard time staying awake so I changed my plans from staying all day to going home to take a nap. I convinced myself he just needed to rest anyways and since he is doing so well I should just go. Well, as soon as I got in the car I started crying because I felt guilty for leaving when I had only been there for a few hours and I could have stayed for several more. By the time I got home I had decided I would just rest for a little bit and then go back up. As I was trying to fall asleep I changed my mind and decided I should spend time with Hudson instead. I just go back and forth, back and forth. I ended up sleeping past 5 and since the NICU closes at 6 for shift change that pretty much solved that problem for me.

We took Hudson out for ice cream after dinner. The poor kid hardly leaves the house anymore so we thought it would be good to go do something. We drove around and looked at a few Christmas lights and then had ice cream. It was then that Jamie told me he wanted me to go back up tonight instead of him, since I felt so bad for leaving early. Well, this didn’t make me feel any better because that meant Jamie wasn’t going to see Tate at all today. He said he wanted to put Hudson to bed since he hadn’t done that all week and in the end, I went back up to the NICU. And I’m so glad I did! I do feel bad Jamie didn’t get to go up but Tate was wide awake at 9 pm when I got there so we tried nursing again and he did the best he’s done since Monday when we had a good session. I think him being awake and alert is what makes all the difference. He usually just falls right asleep so we don’t get to try much but this time he stayed awake for at least 20 minutes. He latched on several times and sucked a little. So that in itself was great, but then I was able to kangaroo him for the remaining hour of his feed and then at midnight she let me kangaroo him for another hour! I definitely like this nurse. That’s 2 nights in a row she let Jamie or I hold him for 2 hours! Tate did great the whole time – I don’t think his alarms went off at all either time.

I was sure today was going to be the day I could make the big announcement that Tate now weighs 3 ½ pounds. But the little stinker decided to gain 2 oz today instead of just 1 so he totally skipped 3 ½. He gained 56 grams and now weighs 3 pounds, 9.2 ounces! I’m not complaining though!


When I was talking with the nurse tonight I asked if the doctor had said anything yet about starting bottlefeeding. She said no, she hadn’t heard but since I am really avid about breastfeeding then they would probably let me do that instead of bottle! I wasn’t sure what to think of that since I have asked every doctor, nurse and nurse practitioner I've talked to about it and they all have only said bottle, bottle, bottle, but its definitely got my hopes up!  He'll be 34 weeks old gestationally tomorrow, plus we've been doing the dry nursing for a week now, so I'm hoping we will start something soon.

Day 20, Friday, December 3

I stayed home with Hudson all morning while Jamie was at work. I’m getting back into craft mode and since it’s the holidays and I have a new baby, I have all sorts of craft ideas I want to try out. I’m sure I’ll never get them all done, especially considering the only time I have to work on them is after Hudson’s in bed. I just keep adding more and more to the list! But this morning Hudson and I worked on his Christmas Countdown calendar. I’ll share it with you soon when I get it all finished.


Once Jamie got home from work I headed up to the hospital. I got to hold Tate after his 3 pm assessment and was able to hold him for a full hour! It’s been a few days since his sats have stayed up enough to hold him that long. There was a new nurse on today and when he started d sating she came in and had me reposition him and that worked to bring his pulse ox back up. So now I know to try that and maybe I’ll get to hold him longer. When she put him back in the isolette she put him on his back and he never really went back to sleep. He kept kicking his legs and waking himself up. He definitely doesn’t sleep well on his back, yet.

They started giving him 2 doses of poly-vi-sol today. It’s a liquid multi-vitamin. He is now eating 29 ml at every feeding, almost a full ounce! Hard to believe he went from 3 ml all the way up to 29 so quickly! They are now increasing the amount he eats based on how much he weighs (instead of every 9-12 hours as before) so it isn’t going up as quickly anymore. He is still getting the extra 5 calories in each feed. Although he isn’t gaining more weight now with the extra calories than he was before, so that’s been disappointing. I haven’t asked the doctor but I know they said an average of 1 oz a day is what they want to see. But he was doing that before they put him on the calories so I expected it to be more. But at least he’s gaining. Today he gained 36 grams and weighs 3 lbs, 7.2 oz. I also found out they measure his length and head circumference once a week and last Sunday he had grown a full inch from birth!

Jamie was up at 9 pm for the night shift and got to hold him for a full hour too. Then at midnight she let him give him a bath and hold him again for another hour! I think I might have to start going up for the night shift!

I always try to have the flash turned off but I didn't this time. He didn't like the bright light!

Day 19, Thursday, December 2

What a difference a day makes! Tate had a good day today, and therefore by default, so did I. His heartrate is still running a little too high and his pulse ox is dropping below 90% but not as much as it had been the last few days. Jamie has all day off on Thursday’s and he volunteered to stay home with Hudson so I could spend the whole day with Tate. That makes my day a lot better too! Knowing Hudson is good with Jamie and I can spend 5-6 hours with Tate. Hudson has adjusted really well this week to our schedule and doesn’t get upset when one of us leaves. It helps that he has been at home almost all week and either with Jamie or myself. At the beginning of the week he spent a few hours at Gigi’s but otherwise he’s just been home. Now when he notices one of us getting ready to leave he just asks where we are going and then asks the other person if they are going too or staying. As long as he hears one of us is staying, he’s fine with it. Even says ‘love you” as you’re leaving (We had started resorting to just sneaking out when he got really bad last week.) and sometimes says to give Tate a kiss for him…


I held Tate for about 30 minutes at noon today. He slept most of the time but kept his heartrate in the 160’s and only had a few d sats. He was awake at the beginning and nursed a little bit. He smiled at me several times too. When she was checking his residual (sucking the contents of his stomach back up the tube to see how much of his last feeding he digested) he got a big grin on his face like it was tickling him. Then when the nurse came in and said he needed to go back in the isolette he frowned! At 3 pm the nurse asked if I wanted to hold him again. I wasn’t about to say no! This time he was wide awake and looking around so I tried to get him to nurse some more. He did a little better but was too busy working on pooping his diaper to concentrate on it. Poor guy. His face would get all red and he’d scrunch up his body, then I’d hear a little fart! He did that for at least 10 minutes. Hopefully he had a blowout diaper for his next diaper change! Funny how much I enjoyed holding him while he dirtied his diaper. Made it seem a little more normal – a little more real.

Unfortunately, since I held him twice in the afternoon they wouldn’t let Jamie hold him when he went up at 9 pm. I was afraid that would happen, but didn’t think of it till after I was already holding him the second time. So I have to be careful to not hog all the holding time. Jamie spoke to one of the doctor’s about his high heartrate and d sats and the doctor wasn’t concerned at all about them. He told him Tate was doing really good and just needs to grow. He gained another 22 grams today and weighs 3 pounds, 5.9 ounces.

There are 2 new babies in our “pod” now. One of them weighs only 1 pound, 1 ounce. Made me realize that I should be thankful I was able to carry Tate as long as I did, rather than dwelling on why I wasn’t able to carry him to full term. He could be so much smaller and need so much more medical intervention than he has had to have. We are so blessed that he is doing so good. I have to continually remind myself of that when I'm feeling down and worried…

“For this child I prayed and the Lord has granted me my petition which I asked of Him.”

I Samuel 1:27

Day 18, Wedenesday, December 1

If your love is supposed to multiply when you have a second child, why do I feel so divided?


Why did my body fail me? More importantly, why did my body fail Tate?

My milk lets down whenever I hear a baby cry – but it’s never my baby.

All thoughts/questions running through my head this evening. Can you tell it’s been a rough day?

Tate’s heartbeat continued to race in the 180’s all day today. He had a lot of d sats today too and his respiratory rate was up and down, up and down. When I got there at 9 am he was on his back, wide awake, legs kicking all around. Twenty minutes later he was still awake. Well, now that I know it’s better for him to sleep it was worrying me. I suggested to the nurse that she should put him on his tummy, cause he slept really well that way yesterday, but she said he had just been on his tummy before she flipped him. They rotate him every assessment so he isn’t always laying the same way. So she tried putting him on his side. It worked for a few minutes, but then his arms and legs started flailing around again. After another 5 minutes she flipped him over to his tummy. He was out immediately and slept till the noon assessment. The nurse told me they are creating a monster for us if he will only sleep on his tummy –since when we get home we should only allow him to sleep on his back. It’s okay to do in the NICU since he’s on the monitors but at home we should always have him on his back. When he’s sleeping his heartrate and other vitals settle back down to a more normal range so the rest of the morning was okay.

I got to hold him at noon. We tried nursing but he fell asleep right away, although he did smile at me several times. He had a huge grin on his face while she checked his residual. It must tickle pulling the residual back out of the tube! So I just held him. But after about 20 minutes he started having more d sats so I had to put him back in his isolette. When we put him back she left his swaddled and that seemed to do the trick for sleeping on his back. He was zonked out and his vitals looked better.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Hudson – we even went to Hobby Lobby and bought the boys’ Christmas ornaments for the tree. I called at 4 to check on Tate and he was sleeping but his heartrate was still in the 180’s. They added another calorie to his milk today so he’s now getting 5 extra calories each time he eats. The calorie they added today was protein. He is now eating 28 ml at every feeding. The nurse practitioner told me she wouldn’t be worried about his weight loss from yesterday unless it happened several days in a row. And thankfully he made up for the loss yesterday by gaining 59 grams today.

Jamie went back up at 9 – seems to be our new routine now. I go during the day and he takes the night shift. So far it’s working out pretty well, although he is still spending more time with Hudson and I spend more with Tate.

As I write all this it doesn’t sound like such a rough day, but it was. It is so frustrating to have his heart racing like it is, with no explanation and have it just start up one day while I was holding him and so far, not stop. It’s scary to watch his heart racing and him breathing rapidly. I really want to hold him to work on sucking or at least kangaroo him but scared to if his vitals go all crazy again. He seems to get worked up after every assessment now.

There were a lot of tears tonight after I put Hudson to bed. We had a rough time going to bed (I knew I shouldn’t have lain down with him the night before!) and that just put me over the top (or maybe under the bottom would be a better way to express it!). I finally pulled out my Bible and found this verse and as soon as I read this, I had peace. It’s going to be one of the many I recite to myself over the next few weeks, and months, as we go through this journey and fight this fight.


“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14

hot chocolate and marshmallows

Why is it that when I feel guilty I offer him sugar?  And it seems to always make it better?  :)

Day 17, Tuesday, November 30th

Tate is 2 weeks old today and to mark the occasion his umbilical cord fell off! I had told the nurse I wanted to keep it – she looked at me a little strange – but wrote it down in his chart anyway. Then when Jamie got up there at 9 there was a sticky note on his isolette to “save the cord for mom” so the day nurse must have noticed it was about to come off. Jamie got to give Tate a bath tonight and it fell off after his bath so he brought it home for me. I kept Hudson’s and put it in his scrapbook, so I’ll do the same with Tate’s.

I started out the day with my 2 week check up with Dr. Jensen. Good news is I’m back down to my pre-pregnancy weight, bad news was there is a blood clot above my incision. But he thought it would just dissolve on its own and go away, so I hope he is right. I hadn’t noticed it until he started pushing on it but that spot is swollen and very tender. I asked him again if there was any reason for all this happening and he said they never found one. He said I would be considered high risk for another pregnancy, more so because I would want to do a VBAC then because of the chance of having another premature baby, although it’s certainly a risk if we decide to have another baby.

The last brady that Tate had was Monday evening at 7 pm so that’s good news. I spoke to the Nurse Practitioner about them a little today and she said they were sure it was from the reflux and now that they have increased his feeding time to 1 hour instead of 30 minutes it seems to have resolved itself. She did tell me that preemies have a weak sphincter muscle in the first place (the muscle that closes to keep food from coming back up) and then with his feeding tube down his throat it doesn’t allow it to close all the way anyways, hence the reflux problem most preemies have. She also told me that it seemed like most of his d sats were happening when he was moving or being moved and that was an issue with the way the monitor works, rather than because he is not breathing right. She also said they did change the monitor to 90-100 instead of 85-100 on his pulse ox because he’s breathing room air and they want to monitor it better.

Tate was sleeping really well when I got there and the nurse said that is good to see. She said when they start getting “wiry” and restless they are burning too many calories so it’s better for them to just sleep all the time. So although I was excited to see him more awake the other day and moving around, that’s actually not a good thing for him right now. She also told me that when he gets to be close to 4 pounds the nurses will start dressing him in preemie clothes instead of just a diaper.

Tate is looking a little bald on top but still has lots of hair around the sides and back. I’m not sure if he lost some hair with the IV tape or if that’s how it always was. His hair is getting lighter though. Today the temperature on his isolette was turned down to 29.6 degrees (Celsius). It’s always been 30.2 degrees so that means he is needing less help to regulate his body temp. We saw him lift up his head and turn it to the other side for the first time today too.

Jamie came up at noon to watch him “nurse” but things didn’t go so well this time. He didn’t want to latch and his heart started racing. It got up into the 180’s and it usually is only 150-160. His respiratory rate was all over the place as well. After a few minutes I switched him to just kangaroo hold him but he still didn’t really like that either. So a few minutes after that we put him back in the isolette. It took him a little bit to calm back down but his heartrate and respiratory rate did finally settle back down. We had to leave after that but I called at 4 to check on him and she said he was resting comfortably but his heartrate was still up in the 170’s. When Jamie went back up at 9 it was back down to his normal range and all his vitals looked good.

It is so frustrating to see him start to have all this weird stuff going on with his vitals. Everything was so perfect the first week or so and his alarms rarely went off. But now they are going off all the time and his heartrate is dropping or racing, his pulse ox is dropping, or his respiratory rate is too high. The nurses keep saying he is just acting like a preemie but it’s hard to watch it happen. Plus we aren’t spending as much time up at the NICU now and it makes it that much harder to leave when I’m worried about his heart or whatever else is going on. And he lost 30 grams today. First time he’s lost since the very beginning too.

I was pretty upset about it tonight while reading Hudson his bedtime story. I was reading him his book about the NICU and kept crying (Oh yeah, that was only yesterday that I didn’t cry. The tears have flowed freely today.). Hudson kept looking at me and then he’d say “No, mom. Use your normal voice.” Also earlier in the evening I asked him if he thought his baby brother would have his eyes. He looked at me and grabbed one of his eyes and said “When my baby brother comes home, is he going to pull my eyes out?” Poor guy, this whole thing is pretty confusing to him. I ended up sleeping with him for awhile last night cause I just wanted to cuddle. Probably not the best idea cause now he’s going to want me to lay down with him every night….but it was comforting.

“Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift your hands toward Him for the life of your young children.” Lamentations 2:19

Day 16, Monday, November 29

I might have reached a milestone today. I didn’t cry. Not once, all day long. I might have teared up a little a few times, but no tears actually fell from my eyes. So maybe my emotions are getting back in check a little. Maybe. We’ll see tomorrow. The other thing that happened to me today is I am starting to realize I don’t have to sit beside Tate’s bed constantly. It just dawned on me that if something were to happen, all I am going to do is yell for the nurses, who would already be on top of it anyway. So just because I’m there isn’t going to make a difference. Not that it makes it any easier to leave him. But I’m realizing Jamie and I can’t go on with the schedule we have kept for the last 2 weeks. It just isn’t possible to do. We’ll still be up there as much as we can, which will still be at least several hours a day for each of us, but not all day and half the night like we had been doing. I hate it when one of us isn’t there though. He needs us, maybe not medically, but he needs to hear our voices and know we are there.


There are 4 other babies in Tate’s “pod” right now. Three have been there since October and the other since August. Their parents hardly ever come to visit them. And when they are there, they don’t stay for more than an hour. I guess everyone’s situations are different and maybe theirs don’t allow them to come. I am so thankful that ours does. I can’t imagine not seeing him everyday. Even if he’s in there several months I can’t imagine not going in once a day to see him.

Tate did absolutely awesome today at his “nursing” session. He was very into trying to suck and latched on several times. His sucking isn’t really strong but he’s definitely figuring it out. After a little bit I thought he was getting too tired so I moved his head up higher on my breast so he could just sleep, but he just started rooting around looking for more! So I let him try some more. Then I thought he was getting tired again so I moved him to the kangaroo position – and he got upset again and started rooting around. So I let him try some more. About this time the nurse came back in and she wasn’t happy to see he was still sucking. I had told her the first time that I thought he was tired so I had moved him but never told her we started sucking again so she thought he’d been sleeping the whole time. I thought it had only been 30 minutes because his tube feeding had just finished, but she said it had been a full hour! They hadn’t told us that they changed his feeds to last an hour instead of 30 minutes to help with the reflux. And I most definitely don’t pay attention to the clock when I get to hold him. So she was worried he was going to be really tired because he went for too long, but when she put him back in his isolette, he kept smacking his lips like he wanted more. She said “look what you’ve started mom!” So hopefully that didn’t wear him out to much. But his sats and vitals were all great the whole time so that’s a good sign. I don’t think I’ll be able to do it two times a day like they said we could because of the way our schedules are working out. They want 9-12 hours in between each session which means I have to go up during the day and again at night but Jamie and I are going to be trading off going most of the time. But I did decide that will be one benefit to bottlefeeding is that Jamie will be able to do it too.

Jamie started back to work this morning. He was supposed to be finished by 1 pm but they had so many people scheduled they ran about an hour behind. So he was exhausted when he came up to the NICU about 2:30. We stayed there till about 4 and then headed home. Tate’s vitals all still looked good and he was sleeping very comfortably. I went to my mom’s to pick up Hudson and Jamie went home to take a nap. When I got to mom’s Hudson really wanted to watch Finding Nemo – which has become an absolute obsession for him. He loves that movie. So I told him he could watch it for 30 minutes while I rested. Over an hour later I woke up, the movie was over and Jamie was calling wondering why we were taking so long.

We spent the evening at home together, all 3 of us. Jamie started a fire in the fireplace and we just sat and watched Hudson play for a long time. While it was nice being home together all I could think about was how much better it would be if I was holding Tate in my arms. And the realization hit me that I have 2 sons now. Obviously. But the first time I had thought about it that way.

Tate’s bilirubin was back down to 7 today. All on its own so I think that means that danger should be past us now and his bilirubin shouldn’t be an issue anymore. They’ll continue to test it for awhile probably, just to make sure. He gained 52 grams and now weights 3 lbs, 4.1 oz. His sats have still been a little low today. It’s very frustrating to have him start this weird stuff now with the bradys, the apnea and the d sats he’s been having. I’m really praying it is just the reflux and not from anything else going on. He did only have one brady today so it’s really the d sats that are a concern right now. And they still are staying over 85%. It’s just that they changed his alarm to go off under 90% so we are noticing those dips now when we didn’t before. I was hoping they could get him off the calories pretty quickly so that all this weird stuff would hopefully go away but the nurse told me today that he might still have to have a supplement added to his breastmilk even after we get to go home, so I guess those aren’t going anywhere for awhile.

I gave Hudson a bath tonight which was the first time I have done that since before my water broke. It was nice to have a normal evening with him. Bath time then bed time. We looked at pictures and some videos of Tate on the computer before he went to bed. He is definitely doing better now that it’s just Jamie and I at home and he is spending most of his time with one of us.

Jamie got to hold Tate after his 9 pm assessment. He was wide awake for 20 minutes and then he sucked on his pacifier for another 20 minutes. So he is definitely figuring out the sucking! Moving us closer and closer to starting bottlefeeding!

One of the breastpumps in the lactation room. Not sure how you hook this thing up.  Looks like it might be the first one ever made!