Milestones

Yesterday morning bright and early Charley and I headed over to the orthodontist. Charley had new "bling" put on, her teeth that is. She has been excited for her braces for a few months now, we'll see if she's still excited about them today when they start to rub her mouth raw.
Aaron's big milestone last night was his graduation into the Low Birthweight Room from the receiving room. Here Aaron and one other baby share a small room and a nurse. It is much quieter here and we don't get kicked out when another baby gets brought in. I went up to see Aaron yesterday and the nurse asked if I wanted to hold him again. I of course said yes and she asked the nurse practitioner if that was ok. Normally they do not allow you to hold your baby (skin to skin they call it) until the baby is at least 750 grams. That will almost be doubling his weight and could take months to reach. Our np is also going to ask in rounds today if we could have two scheduled skin to skin times each week. Aaron does great, he keeps his temperature up and settles right down when I hold him and both the nurse and the np said he sleeps much better afterwards so if the doctor ok's it we are good to go. We've been told that Aaron qualifies for social security as he is deemed disabled. Apparently when you are below 1200 grams the government considers that a disability. If 1200 grams is the baseline he certainly qualifies!

The nurse also asked if I was planning on nursing Aaron. I said yes and then she said when they get to be 34 weeks gestation they start to allow the mothers to nurse their babies. I laughed out loud and told her if he was still too small to take the tiny pacifier they have in his bed there was no way he would be able to nurse. Aaron has quite some growing to do until that day comes, its certainly something to look forward to. His belly is a little swollen this morning and a little black and blue so that is something they are going to watch. He continues to have good bowel sounds and continues to pee like a champ so they will continue to increase the amount of his feeds. They took him off his fat emulsion and looks like they will take him off his TPN today or tomorrow. When that happens he will have his pic line removed. They are adding calories to his milk to try to bump up his weight. He went back down to 390 yesterday but they said that is normal until he is maxed out on his feeds at 7.5 mls. That will happen this weekend if all goes well. I always feel better when his weight increases though.