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.
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