Mom Comes Home

Danielle was discharged from the hospital today. The doctors gave her some restrictions on activity (no driving for 10 days, no skydiving) and some nice prescriptions for pain. She’s happy to be out of the hospital and back into more familiar surroundings, but it’s hard to leave without Jeffrey.
Meanwhile, back at the NICU, Jeffrey is being a star pupil. I stopped in for his 6 AM feeding and here’s what the doctors told me…

• Bilirubin levels have dropped from 11 to 9 and are still decreasing. Update 10 PM: bili is down to 8.4!


• CPAP has been removed and nasal cannula supplemental oxygen dropped to 1.5 L/min, possibly removed or lowered more tomorrow.


• He’s started on breast milk feedings. He has to handle eight 2cc syringes of milk before they’ll graduate him to 4cc syringes full. Update 10 PM – He had his first 4cc feeding tonight!

We were allowed to hold him outside of the fort today for about ½ hour. His temperature remained steady the whole time. His doctors and nurses are very pleased with his progress, and we’re so proud of him.

On Monday night we took a class from Daicia, and RN with the NICU. She taught us a few things about preemie babies. Since their nervous system is still very immature, they startle very easily. This means that you can’t stroke a preemie, they require a stable firm pressure type of touch instead of a feathering your fingers over their body. At their stage of development, they’d still be in the confines of the womb, so their used to being held very tightly. It’s best to simulate that environment in his fort as well. Also, NICU babies need to sleep as much as possible, since that’s when they heal and grow. So instead of touching and playing with your baby (which is good when they’re awake), try talking to them so that they hear your voice. You can talk about anything.
Today, Jeffrey and I talked about how nodes on a network detect collisions and the protocols used within that collision domain. Sure, he doesn’t seem to know an awful lot about CSMA/CD, but he could at least nod like he’s sorta interested. Oh well, at least he doesn’t argue with me!
Dani and I will be splitting up our time in the NICU to try and cover all of his daytime feedings. I’ll be doing the 9 AM and 12 PM, and Danielle will do the 3 PM and 6 PM ones. It’s the only place we want to be right now.