How's Ace?

GREAT!

He was almost at 6 pounds, but had to start a kind of diuretic to shed some goo in his lungs, so he lost a little and is down to 5 pounds, 11 ounces.

He's slowly weaning off the oxygen. The only times he desats (remember? "drops oxygen levels?") is when he's eating, fussing, trying to poop, or moving around a bunch so his monitor goes all wonky. When he's being normal chill baby, he's fine and his oxygen levels are perfect. I got a little annoyed when I realized that they're keeping the oxygen on him even when he is sleeping, when he clearly needs it the least. I took the cannula out of his nose yesterday and held him for 2 hours, and his oxygen levels were in the high 90's. (i.e. perfect.) Did it again today, again, high 90's. So I told his nurse today that I only want him to be on oxygen when he's eating, because sometimes he gets a little choked up and needs the extra poof. She said that's fine.

I am so tired of those !$^!#$%!#^ alarms. The monitor gets all out of whack whenever I sit him up to burp him, and so the alarm goes off the ENTIRE TIME I'm trying to burp him. It's a little stressful trying to get a burp out of a child when something's honking at you incessantly. I can't wait to have a wireless child. I've never seen him without anything on his beautiful little face.

Breastfeeding is still a bit of a challenge. He will latch on and start sucking for dear life, then hang out, move his tongue around a little, and look around like there are much more interesting things to do. I have to make him latch on again every time I want him to suck. He did really well today, nursing for a good 10 minutes. He started to get tired, so I stopped, burped him, and gave him his bottle. I'll be more aggressive about it when I get him home. Maybe he'll only get bottles when I want to sleep. I really don't want to wake up to pump and again to feed him.

Yes, I think he'll be home next week. While I'm excited to not have to drive to the hospital twice a day, I'm still a little terrified about going from this super sterile environment to my house, which has seen cleaner days. Isn't there some sort of step-down program? Can a sister get a bubble?

Who's a little chunkalunka??































That's the teddy bear my daddy gave Ace when he was first born. My dad called me the other night guilt tripping me about not having sent him any pictures lately, so I took this one, even though Ace was grumpy.

And pass the ketchup... this one's for DP and Emily: