So David is now 4 days old. He still hasn’t gotten the knack of eating, but they continue to remind us it could be a week on that. Kristina and I have been here all day, though we did go down to the cafeteria for breakfast and lunch, and out to dinner. It is nice, in a way, in the NICU that we can trust the nurses to take care of David, and moreover, that they are going to do so whether or not we are there. So going off and doing something together alone is something we have the luxury to do now, but know we won’t once he comes home (unless we have someone at the house watching him).
Overall, David has had a great day. They decided his jaundice numbers were low enough on day 4 that he wouldn’t need the special lights, so they swapped out his incubator for a regular crib. So now he’s in a “big boy” crib–at least, that’s what they called it. The nurse this evening weighed him, and was surprised to find he has gained 30 grams since yesterday, which puts him at 4lb, 13.2oz. She repeated the weight 3 times to be sure. I pointed out to her that previous measures were taken in the incubator rather than the mobile scale, so that may be the reason for the difference. We saw the doctor this morning, who said David was doing fine, just that he needed to grow up a bit more. 🙂
He’s doing okay on vitals, he’s had a couple of “Brady’s” today (where his heart rate drops below threshold), some of which were due to things like positioning, and others for unknown reasons. Remember that to go home, he has to be eating well, gaining weight, and not have had a Brady in 5 days (among I’m sure other criteria).
Currently he feeds every 3 hours on a 2/5/8/11 schedule. So far we have slept during the 2am feedings, but have tried to be around for all the others. Occasionally we try to bottle feed, which has mixed results–he may take 11ml (out of 35), or he may take only 1-3. Granted, he usually drools some (much?) of that, but at least he kinda has the sucking part of the suck-swallow-breathe action down.
Out of curiosity, and to find out more about adding a new dependent to our health care plan, I went down to the business office today, and asked what his running bill was adding up to. WOW! I will just say I am very glad Purdue offers very good insurance!
Tonight we are headed back to West Lafayette, and will stay there until Sunday, when we’ll return, and take turns being present while we run back and forth to teach class or supervise student teachers.
More Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers):
- Q: What can I do to help/what do you need? A: At the moment, we are mostly just driving back and forth to Indianapolis. He is wearing premie clothes, but the hospital is providing them, and I have already heard there are at least one set of premie clothes on the way to us, so I would NOT go out and buy premie clothes (plus, he should not be in them very long). We are registered at BabiesRUs (http://www.babiesrus.com – registry number 41815430), and also Walmart (http://www.walmart.com – registry number 38512399003). We listed the expected due date as April 1st, since any showers which get planned will be obviously after the actual delivery date. Don’t worry too much about specific clothes on the registry, because we created it back in October for a different situation, and the clothes may not be the ones you think are appropriate anymore. I’m sure there will be other ways to help once he comes home, but until then, I don’t know that there’s a lot to do.
Finally, here are a few pictures of David from today.
