It'a Slumber Party

Tonight we get to sleep over in the hospital parents room with Jack. He is hooked up to the apnea monitor that he is going home with, otherwise it's like a test drive. Hopefully all will go well overnight and we'll be that much more ready to have him home. We both figure that we will be a little sleep deprived but a lot more prepared. He is still episode free (knocking on wood as I type). He also gained some more weight and broke the 7 lb mark (now 7 lbs 0.2 oz yes the 0.2 counts). So we'll see how things progress. It's 7:49pm right now and we have him in the room. Mary is feeding him and he seems content. Depending on how I feel I may update through the night and give you all a status of our sanity... I know we haven't even had him by ourselves for an hour yet.

11:30pm--- Jack is awake for his first feeding of the night. He has been grunting and talking a lot with some gas pains. So far everything is going well, now hopefully for some sleep.

4:00am--- Well, all is still going well. Jack woke us up around 1:30, he was pretty hungry. I guess he didn't get as much milk from Mary as we thought he did. Now it's about 4:25 and he is hungry again.

8:00am--- Time for Jack to eat again. Wow we made it through the night. No episodes, we didn't end up rocking back and forth in a corner and Jack seems to be no worse for the experience. Mary and I are a little sleep deprived, but glad we got to spend the night with our son. We can't wait to get him home!

Oh So Close

Just 18 hours from making it to the one week mark Jack had another apnea/bradycardia episode. We were getting ready to leave for the hospital when the doctor called us. It really took the wind out of our sails. We were getting used to the idea of having him home soon, and really happy he had an end in sight. Well, he will be in the NICU for at least another week. When he goes home they'll send him home with an apnea monitor. They aren't sure what could be causing him to have these episodes, hopefully he will just outgrow them, and soon. Other than that 1 episode he did fine. He is eating all his food and is now 6 lbs 8.6 oz. He is getting so big. Especially when compared to his first pictures. So, the timer starts over again, we fully expect him to make it the full week. We've had a talk with him. We are very glad it happened at the hospital and not at home, we probably would have panicked.

Mmmm mmmm good.

Today Jack did his first official bottle feed. He did very well. I got to do it, and he took his whole feeding amount. We thought that he might get overwhelmed or too tired, I guess he was hungry. Jack weighed in at 5 lbs 9 oz, something is either wrong with the scale they had been using, or the one the used today because there's no way he gained half a pound in one day. Also, if you pay close attention to his little leg there is a monitor on it. No, he is not on house (err nursery) arrest, they put a monitor on all babies his age/size so nobody tries to snatch him. Think of it as a lo-JACK device for babies....yes pun intended.

Not much else is going on with baby Jack. The nurses all tell us he is doing wonderfully and he is making excellent progress. We like that kind of news.