Day 29-June 24, 2008

The little girl is growing up! She has been placed on "demand feeding" status, which means that she will have to cry to be fed by bottle or nursing, rather than being fed every three hours automatically by nursing, bottle, or gavage. She isn't being taken off of food cold turkey, of course, because if she doesn't caterwall within a four hour period, she will still have to be gavaged. At least she will start to learn the connection between being hungry, crying, and having someone feed her (yes, term babies come out doing that, but preemies actually have to learn it). She has drank full bottles (35 ml or more) in the middle of the night before, so she is capable of doing it.
The staff is getting kind of anxious that we get all of our care "benchmarks" accomplished this week, like watching a video on how to do infant CPR and getting our car seat (still coming via FedEx from Babies 'r' Us in Pennsylvania--due tomorrow) certified and getting her SapO2 levels checked while she is strapped into it. We still have to spend the night in the hospital in a special room for parents to experience the first night or two with their babies who come out of ICN, to make sure they are feeding okay, but are still on monitors and have nurses to call if the parents get into a jam or something. We also have to find her a pediatrician, which the staff at the hospital asks if we have done yet (and the pediatrician office asks if she has been discharged yet--nice chicken or egg scenario). All of this while Amanda has gone back to work at Fife HS partial days and I have an AP workshop at Interlake HS somewhere in the middle of a bunch of '60s housing developments in the surroundings of Bellevue until Friday. The timing is almost as good as Clare's birth, I say with great (but loving) sarcasm.
She's still coming along with the feeding thing, though. I fed her the majority of a bottle tonight after I got to Tacoma from Bellevue. She still has to ask for her milk and take it all at one feeding (without falling asleep in the middle, or at least waking up and asking for more), and do it in consecutive feedings for a certain amount of time (I think for a couple of days) before we can even consider our "vacation" at the hospital and her discharge to her home with us. I think she will be there through the weekend at least before all of these steps can be taken care of, and I think the hospital is rushing us just a touch. I'd surely avoid a terrifying day journey to Bellevue's suburban wastelands if my baby were going to be ready to come home within the next couple of days, but I think she has some skills to work on a bit yet before she's ready. Honestly, I'm more worried about her being able to do it than I am at having her here at home, away from her cute but loud neighbor and all of the goings-on of the Intermediate Care Nursery at Tacoma General.