Our Jumping Off Place: Day 45, Tuesday, December 28

Tate is 6 weeks old today and since he always wants to celebrate somehow, today he took 6 full bottles!

I had my 6 week follow up at the doctor this morning. I have lost another 3.5 pounds. I had a bet going with Jamie that I had gained 5 pounds with all the junk food I’ve been eating so I guess I lost that one. When the doctor came in he asked me “Where’s junior?” I think the confused look on my face made him remember who I was and where “junior’s” at and then he felt bad for asking…

When I got here today the nurse asked me if I had a car seat and said we could bring it in any day. I have been so waiting for them to tell me that because it means we are getting close. She said at this point Tate could put it all together and be up to 8 full bottles in a few days or it could still take another week or two. So she said it was no hurry to bring it in but we could if we wanted to. They won’t do the car seat test till he’s still a little closer to going home. So I’ll probably bring it up in the next few days. She did tell me the brand we have is normally a good one for preemies so hopefully it passes inspection (the straps have to meet certain measurements since he’s smaller than the average baby). Some babies have to actually go home in car beds if they don’t have good body support so to determine if he’s ok for the car seat he has to be able to sit in the car seat for a full hour and half without having any issues (dsats, bradys, apnea). Every baby in the NICU has to pass this test before they can go home.

She also asked if we wanted to have him circumcised here or if our pediatrician would do it. Which brings us to the fact that we have a pediatrician picked out that we think we want to use (I feel more comfortable taking him to a pediatrician for at least the first year over our family doctor just because he is a preemie.) but I haven’t called yet to see if they will take him. She said I should go ahead and get all that lined up and find out about the circumcision. If the doctor does them in his office then we can have it done there but if he won’t do it there then we’d need to get it done here by one of the neonatologists. I think I’d prefer to wait till he is bigger before we have it done so I need to call the doctor and make sure he will do it in his office. First I have to make sure he’ll accept Tate as a patient. But I’m really excited that we are starting to talk about going home stuff….yeah!

Tate will have to go to the pediatrician one week after he gets out of the NICU for a follow up and then it’s up to the pediatrician from there. She said it’s possible they will send home health out to weigh and assess him at first, or we might just have to bring him in to the doctor more often. It will depend on the doctor. Once he gets to 8 pounds we won’t have to worry so much and shouldn’t have to take to the doctor so often, but 8 pounds is kind of the goal to reach to get the all clear of any “preemie” feeding/weight gain issues.
I am wondering how that will work going home – I know we will want to just hold him constantly but I have a feeling they are going to tell us to try and keep the same routine he has here- which means only holding during feedings and for a few hours total each day so that he doesn’t burn too many calories and keeps gaining weight.

I fed Tate his bottle at noon. I felt really good with this feed. I was reading his cues well and could tell when he was breathing and not. He even started breathing some without prompting the last half of the feed. He did choke once and speech explained it is actually better to leave the bottle in his mouth when he chokes even though my instinct is to pull it out. That’s because if I pull it out he tries to breathe before he’s recovered from the choking versus recovering from the choking before he tries to take another breath. I did that this time and he did recover quicker.

Plus Angela (speech therapist) said I was doing a really good job pacing him and wasn’t pacing him too much. She said to ignore the nurses if they tell us we are pacing too much because based on what she saw, I am doing exactly what Tate needs. That made both of us feel much better because we do feel like the nurses just shove the bottle in his mouth and get him to take the whole thing much quicker. And they tell us they didn’t pace as much as we are but I feel much better taking our time. He did one of his feeds last night in 6 minutes. Like Angela explained, it’s not a race to see who can get him to drink his bottle the quickest; we are trying to do what Tate needs to feel comfortable taking his bottle so that we can do it more and more. So it’s frustrating that we can’t do every feed but if we want to do every feed I would have to start staying overnight to do so. I guess if it’s something we start to feel really strongly about (the way the nurses are feeding him) than that’s something we might have to consider doing.

After his 3 pm feeding I declared that we now officially “get it.” Tate did GREAT at 3. I really feel like I have this figured out now too. He didn’t choke and finished in less than 10 minutes. He was very sleepy towards the end but he pushed through and finished it off. He cuddled with me till 4:45…I wanted to do longer (like always) but since he lost weight yesterday I put him back. Evidently I didn’t need to be worried about his weight gain (or it helped that I put him back) because he gained 118 grams today. Almost 4 ounces. That’s his biggest weight gain ever. He now weighs 5 pounds, 10.3 ounces and is 16 ¾ inches long.

At 9 Tate was so tired he didn’t even wake up for his assessment and diaper change so he tube fed. I was worried he would be too tired at midnight but he woke up and gobbled the whole thing down in less than 10 minutes for Jamie. He then also took full bottles at 3 am and 6 am so that made 6 full bottles for the day (They count from his 9 am feeding through his 6 am feeding for a full day, not midnight to midnight.). Speech told us he would need to do 6 full bottles for a few days before they raised his orders from 4-6 bottles a day to 6-8 a day – the final step! At this point we are estimating we’ll be out of here mid week next week, assuming Tate cooperates with our plan from here on out!