Day 41, Friday, December 24

I had planned on making some Christmas treats for the nurses this morning but those plans quickly changed when Hudson woke up and told me his tummy hurt. He said he still wanted to eat breakfast so I gave him an English muffin and halfway through he threw up all over himself. Great. The flu. Just what we need. On Christmas. So instead of having him help me make some snacks for the nurses (and then exposing all of them to our germs and thereby Tate) we spent the morning just hanging out. I had been in the process of making him an egg for breakfast when he got sick. He begged to eat the egg all morning and I wouldn’t let him. He didn’t have a fever. I finally let him eat some lunch and he devoured it and was fine the rest of the day. So we aren’t real sure what that was about except that he did eat five pieces of baked ham at dinner the night before so maybe that was what upset his tummy.

Since he was not running a fever and was fine the rest of the day we decided to go ahead and go to my family’s Christmas get together Friday night. I was looking forward to it because it was a break in our routine so I was glad we got to go. I wasn’t real sure what Hudson would do with the presents. I thought once we started opening he would be really into it and want to open everyone’s gifts but he was not at all interested in opening presents. Especially not after he got a gator golf game - that was the end of what little participation we had from him. About 9 pm as we were packing up to leave I asked him if his tummy hurt. He said, “No, can I have my eggs now?”

Since I was still the only one that hadn’t gotten Tate to take a full bottle I was determined that today was the day. For my Christmas present Tate was going to drink his full bottle. I prayed all the way to the hospital that this would be the time. We started out a little slow but then it clicked and he took the whole thing. I know I still paced him too much (the nurse said she didn’t pace him near as much this morning as I was doing) and it took us a lot longer than it does the nurses but we did it. We got down to the last 5 ml and Tate was getting really tired so I started begging him for Christmas for mommy to please finish his bottle. He took a few more big swallows and it was gone! Merry Christmas Mommy! I had decided for my other Christmas present that I was going to kangaroo him for as long as I wanted to today. I guess the nurses thought it would be a nice Christmas present for me as well because they let me. After about an hour she stepped in and checked on us but didn’t make me put him back. So I held him till 5:30 and then I had to go pump and head out to my grandma’s for Christmas dinner.

But on top of all that, the doctor gave me a Christmas present too today. He stopped by and said he was impressed at how much Tate had improved in the last few days. Then he said that Tate didn’t make it home for Christmas but maybe he’ll be home in time for New Year’s!

I guess I wore Tate out working on my Christmas present cause he only took about 30 mls for Jamie at his 9 pm feeding. But it was also pretty busy and loud in the NICU tonight because the new baby next to Tate needed more care and the doctors and nurses were working on him (He swallowed meconium at birth and they have him on a ventilator and are clearing his lungs out.) and then the baby on the other side of Tate had to be put back on the ventilator. He is 4.5 months old and still has 4-6 weeks before he can go home. So there was a lot going on and we have definitely noticed that the louder and busier it is in the NICU the more worn out Tate is – even though he just sleeps through it all!