30

When we are 29, we dread turning 30. Well, most of us do. I welcomed it. I was sick of being 29, and I was ready to be out of the whole decade of the 20's, during which I made poor decisions and did not further my emotional health, career, or financial well being. I guess I thought that rounding the 30 corner would make me a grown up...

Here's hoping for the 40 corner!

Our baby just turned 30 (gestational age), which is even more welcome to me. He's still ten weeks away from the magical "40," but he's inching (and ouncing) forward. The book says that he weighs about three pounds, which is about right. He was 1345 grams on Friday, which translates to 2.965 pounds. Supposedly, were he "inside," he would gain around half a pound a week until week 37. It will be interesting to watch the board to see what happens. He lost 15 grams (.03 pounds) from Saturday through Sunday, but his weekend nurse, Michelle, expected that he would gain that back overnight. I could not go this morning to see him because I needed to be at work early, and Pete did not check the board to see what his weight was, so I can't report on that.

This is a great sentence for the parents of preemies: "Your baby may practice breathing by moving his or her diaphragm in a repeating rhythm." It's true! He's practicing, which is why he still has A&B spells and de-sats. I'm getting better about it; I am not panicky, I just don't like to see him struggling or in any distress whatsoever.

He looks pretty chill here, though... I don' think that turning 30 bothered him in the least...

Geeks

What magic power would you like to have, if you were given the choice? I am, of course, thinking about powers from the Harry Potter stories. My first choice has always been apparition, but lately, "Accio" has been gaining a glossy sheen due to the fact that I am so often sitting in one place with both my hands occupied by the breast pump and its apparatus. I could easily free one hand to use my wand to summon a book or other useful object. But it seems that no matter how hard I concentrate, I can't get the warm washcloth to fly from the kitchen to the couch.

The harried lives of hapless muggles.

I think about these sorts of things a lot, and many of my references are pretty dorky. During our hospital stay, whenever we went through the tunnel from Abbott to Children's, the Lord of the Rings references were plentiful. The doors that open automatically reminded us of opening the gates to Moria, and more than once, the word "Mellon" was uttered in their presence. The word "tunnel" was said in Gollum's voice.

Really, we're just geeks in grown-ups' clothing, and this child has years ahead of him, feeling embarrassed by his juvenile parents. His mother will quote lines from "Friends" at seemingly inappropriate moments, his father will say "What's taters, precious" while cooking in the kitchen.

There will be much eye-rolling in the McCauley household.

Even the presence of the onesie and the huge giant shirt have me in mind of house elves, and I can't stop thinking about Dobby saying "Master has given a sock" and thinking that clothes are a rite of passage for our little schnooks, too. Clothes make him look like a real baby and add another level of humanity to him.

He's still not as big as a house elf, but he's gaining. He was 2.877 pounds this morning (1305 grams), and that's so very close to three whole pounds!

Bag Lady

OK. I should be ready to pump at work.
I think I have everything...

Express Yourself!

Now that I have (hopefully) put that song into your head for the remainder of the day, I ask you: how expressive does this make you feel?


Maybe it's meant to be a blank canvas that spurs the user to new heights of light and color, but I don't picture Chagall being all that inspired by these surroundings.

I just returned from my first expression at the "Expression Connection" room here at my work (yes, that's the Sesame Street name for the program). The room will be called The Bunker from here on. I am not really complaining; at least I have a place to pump close enough to my work to make it relatively convenient, and once I get a routine down (and remember all the stuff I need), it will be fine. I am simply observing and relating my impressions.

I figure I will only need to use The Bunker once or twice a day, for twenty minutes, and my other four to six "expressions" will be conducted in the comfort of my home. Tomorrow, I will try to get all the things I need together. I have access to two different kinds of pumps from the same maker. One style is at home and at the hospital, and the other is here at work. One uses membranes and hoses; one uses a piston and hoses. Invariably, when I head to the hospital with the intention to pump while I am there, I forget the membranes and hoses. Yesterday, when I came to work with the intention to pump, I brought the membranes (which are unnecessary) and hoses, but forgot the pistons. Today, I remembered both the membranes (still unnecessary) and pistons but forgot storage bottles or caps for the pump bottles. I also did not bring the little cooler. The milk will be fine until I get home--the cooler would only be a place to put the milk so that co-workers don't have to look at little bottles of breastmilk kicking back in the communal fridge.

Tomorrow, I am putting the diaper bag that I knitted into early service to carry my parts back and forth (you can't leave them in The Bunker), and I figure I will throw them into a plastic bag for washing and transit. The yellow basin is too cumbersome. The Bunker is only two buildings away, but that's far enough to not want to carry all my gear in plain view. Once I get a chance to pick up an extra set of hoses, breastshields, connectors, and valves, I'll leave it here, as well as a stock of storage bottles and labels, so I don't have to transport anything but the milk and cooler. And I don't have to forget essential items.

At some point, I am sure that The Bunker will lead me to create something very similar to this:

last night's cuddle

This means... CLOTHES!

He's wearing a shirt!
I told you...

Bright-eyed, and...

It's hard to believe that one month ago this moment, I was at the clinic, waiting nervously for a diagnosis. Today, we have a 2.7 pound baby in the NICU, and my life is timed according to my breasts. It's going fast, I must say, mainly because of our schedule. When your life is divided up into small chunks of time in between a repeating event, it tends to slide by pretty quickly.

I still don't pump 8-10 times a day. I can't imagine being able to do that. Yesterday, it was only 5, in fact. But there's no more sleeping through the night--the boobs won't let me. It's too uncomfortable, and I wake up. This morning, I was up at 3:00, and that's pretty standard. I had The Machine ready to go when I stumbled out to the living room, so I was headed back to bed at 3:39.

Back to bed. Back to sleep is an entirely other thing. I am usually awake by the time I go back to bed, and I start thinking about all the things I have to do. Right now, its mainly work stuff--end of the fiscal year type of hoo-ha. Very exciting. I lay there last night, thinking and relishing the few short hours during which I can lay on my stomach. And then the cats started.

Max began his ritualistic stalking of something in the yard, from the inside of the house. This involves trotting to the kitchen (or part way to the kitchen), turning around, coming back into our bedroom, jumping up onto the bed, running over us, hopping to the window, jumping down onto the floor, repeat. Ad nauseum. I got up and closed the door as he ran out of the room. Five minutes later, Fritz, who was asleep on the bed, decided that he needed to leave. He scratched at the door, I got up and let him out. Max was right outside, waiting to get in. I closed the door again. Not much time passed before someone was scratching to get in. I got up and opened the door. Sometime later, Pete got up and closed the window because the "f#$%ing birds were too loud." He slept through a cat running over his prone form, but the birds were too loud. OK. That was 4:55. I fell asleep sometime after that. Pete's alarm went off at 6:00. He got up, but did not turn it off, so it went off again at 6:08 and then 6:16 when my whining finally alerted him. I don't know how to turn off his alarm.

Wait. Was that this morning?

It could have been yesterday.

I am not even sure.