Sunday, June 8--Day 13

It's hard to believe Clare will be two weeks old tomorrow.  The past three weeks have just been a blur, starting with the membrane rupture and hospital bedrest, then the labor and her birth, then the NICU, and now over a week in the ICN.  I sometimes wonder if I couldn't go back to work even to attend graduation or the end of the school year luncheon, and then I know I just couldn't handle trying to focus on something else right now.

Today was the first time Clare stayed awake and kept her eyes open when we held her.  I kangarooed in the morning and Tim did so in the afternoon, and both times she stayed awake after we changed her diaper and took her out of her isolette, her little eyes rolling over our faces as she sucked on her pacifier.  While she still isn't holding her gaze--not like full-term newborns who can spend some time looking in their parents' faces--her eyes aren't wandering away from one another as much and she's keeping them open longer.  This is particularly good because it indicates she's ready to integrate another sense into her understanding of the world.  Preemies can only filter so much sensory information and are easily overstimulated, so her ability to add sight to her other senses when we hold her (touch, hearing, and smell) is a big step.  I can't wait for the day when she does look into our faces, or truly turns in our direction when we talk.

Clare tried to nurse on Tim's chest this afternoon.  Apparently, we didn't get her the binky fast enough.

And her weight gain yesterday seems to be legitimate, because she weighed 4 lbs 13 oz today.  I'm still a little nervous about a five ounce gain in one day, so I'll feel better after Dr. Mulligan checks in with us tomorrow morning.  While this sounds like she weighs a lot, and everyone seems to know a baby of similar size who went home with no problems, it's important to note she still isn't even 34 weeks' gestation and we won't know until after Wednesday if her digestive system is strong enough to process food.  And she has yet to graduate to a cradle, which won't happen until after she's taking feeds again and is old enough to regulate her body temperature.  The three things she has to do in order to come home are:  self-manage her body temperature, feed from either breast or bottle, and gain weight and grow.  So despite her weight, we are still looking at weeks left in her stay at the hospital.  

I'm trying to feel good about two weeks passing already--two weeks of hospital care under our belts and we're that much closer to coming home--and it's kind of working.  I think maybe I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.  But it still feels like a very, very long tunnel.  The Chunnel comes to mind.