Daniel finally came home today!!!!

We're getting settled back in here. It is so, so good to be home, and even better to have our little boy. He's doing great, sleeping a lot, but it's been an exciting day.

Well, I have to get back to snuggle time! :)

--Amy

"The room is kinda small but it is really nice to have Daniel with us. So far everything's going really well"

Looks like Amy left out several key details on the rooming-in thing. We have a pair of twin beds. My use of the word "bed" is somewhat generous in attempting to describe an apparatus of such dubious fitness. They seem to have been crudely assembled by the criminally insane from disused Oldsmoble parts, random chunks of concrete, and a general lack of concern for whoever may have to use them.

If the sleep surface were 4 foot by 8 foot, I would suspect more heavily their being sourced from the lumber section of Home Depot. That is to say, they're quite hard, which promotes constant turning. They are also quite squeeky, which promotes constant waking of Mr. Daniel. My back is currently messed up enough that burping hurts and we're only halfway done with this.

Oh, and there's an A/C vent right over his crib that we cannot control. Said vent location is by happenstance directly over the oxygen tap and emergency equipment that is bolted to the wall and the crib cannot be moved away from. Nice. There are currently 57 blankets on Daniel. The 34th through 38th layers of blankets have been intentionally set ablaze. This is in the hope of being enough to counteract the vent which seemingly draws air from the less hospitable parts of Saskatchewan.

The room has a shower. There's even hot water. Actually, there's lots of water, and it doesn't dispense slowly either. Quite the opposite in fact. The shower controls give you any temperature you want from lukewarm to warm, and precisely one water pressure setting: ultra.

To replicate the sensation of using this, strip naked and stand about 4 feet back from a pressure washer. No no, not one of those sissy plug-in "power" washers, I'm talking the kind you pour gasoline into. The drain is extremely free flowing and the diameter of a paint can, but it has trouble keeping up.

This is something you most definitely want to keep nipples far far away from.

We moved from the RMH over to the parents' room at the hospital last night. This is a room down the hall from the NICU, and Daniel gets to stay in the room with us with only the home monitor hooked up. This is basically a trial run before he goes home (which has been bumped to tomorrow). The room is kinda small but it is really nice to have Daniel with us. So far everything's going really well. I think he rather likes being someplace relatively quiet where he can eat generally whenever he feels like it. He's still technically on the schedule, but they're a bit more flexible with it as long as he's eating well. He's nursing very well and sleeping well. The monitor has had a few false alarms already. We switched the stickers out a little while ago and so far the new ones seem to be better.

--Amy

As of recent, if he's awake then he pretty much has a boob stuffed in his face, but we do actually have some pictures of Daniel awake. His eyes are starting to lighten up and are showing some slight hint of blue. Of course this means absolutely nothing as far as what his eye color will be a year from now, but yes he does actually have eyes and does actually wake up.





Back to more of the usual....

There are a lot of doctors in the NICU, but the attending physician seems to be in charge. There are a few attendings, and they rotate in and out of the NICU, so we'll see one for a few weeks and then not see them for a while. The attending that we've been working with recently was very concerned about Daniel desatting during feeds, which we've mentioned here. However, he rotated out this weekend and a different one is back. She doesn't seem to think it's quite so much to worry about as long as it isn't severe, is only during feeds, and he's recovering on his own (i.e. he doesn't need extra oxygen or anything). He's been meeting those criteria for a while now, but they still want to make sure he can do it now that the caffeine's out of his system, which is understandable. But, we have a tentative release date of Thursday if he keeps up the good work. So, we're hoping and praying that he continues to do well without the caffeine, and we'll believe the release date for sure when he's actually discharged. :)

--Amy