So far, not lovin' the Special Care.
Finn is doing great. He's sleeping, eating, pooping, and breathing. He's still off the cannula, and he has not had a spell since he moved. Best of all, as of yesterday, he was 5 pounds, 2 ounces. It's his "Andrew Weight." Andrew is my cousin who was born at 32 weeks and around 5 pounds. It's sort of my gold standard in preemie weight.
Special Care is Baby Training: the goal is to get the baby ready to come home and to get us ready to take care of him. That's great. I am all for it. I can even handle modifications to our routine to accommodate this, suspicious of change as I am. What I don't need, however, is to feel like I am doing things wrong. Or, to feel like the goal is to get him home to make the insurance company happy.
We got into a routine with the NICU, and we got to know the staff. We had two months there, after all. Now we are meeting new people and getting used to new surroundings, two experiences at which I am not very adept. I have tried to keep doing the things we do. We come in around his care times, we take his temperature and change his diaper, and we hold him. Even if it's not actually his care time, this is what I do. A few days ago, Pete gave me license to leave the house without him if I am ready and he is not. What I don't think he realized is that this means he would probably never get to see Finn in the morning, because I will be ready to go when he is still drinking his coffee.
The past two mornings, I managed to be ready by 7:30. Yesterday, I left, which put me at the hospital at around 8:00. I introduced myself to the nurse, who was new to me and taking care of another baby, washed my hands, and went to say hello to Finn. The nurse said "I wasn't expecting you until 9:00."
"Yeah, I did not wait for my husband, so I was able to get here earlier."
I took his temperature and started to unwrap the baby burrito to check his diaper.
"He doesn't eat until 9:00," the nurse said.
"I know. I am just going to get him out and give him a chance to nuzzle."
"We usually don't like to disturb them twice. I'll need to get his vitals at 9, and I'll have to bother him again. They need to conserve energy. And it's just that I have these other babies at 8:00, and I won't be able to help you."
"I don't need any help. I work, so my time is limited."
"Well you should let us know if you want to change his times, and we can do something that works more with your schedule."
"ok."
I got him out. He was sleeping, so I let him continue. There's no point in offering him boob if he's sleeping. Boob puts him to sleep as it is. I held him until it was getting close to his cares, at which point, he desat-ed, and his heart rate dropped. He does this; we are pretty used to it by now. His heartrate usually pops back up, but his sats may lag behind that a bit.
The nurse came over and immediately got in there, gave him blow-by O2, then took him from me and put him in the crib to stim (stimulate) him. I just sat there in the chair. I knew that he was fine; I knew that he did not need all of that, but it's her job, and I didn't feel like I could say anything. I had already ascertained that her personality was not a cuddly match with mine; the best thing I could do was suck it up and smile and nod.
She gave him back to me when his sats went back up, and we had a nice cuddle.
Today is bath day. If this is going to be our nurse, Pete will be doing the bath.
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