Time flies and already Micah is 4 weeks old! He’s still doing wonderfully and better than we imagined he would do. Here’s the quick summary of what he’s done in the last week and a half:
- Moved twice, from ICU1 to ICU2, and then very quickly again out of ICU2 and into the “Special Care” room
- Moved out of his incubator into a crib
- Had a blood transfusion due to low hemoglobin levels, which were making it hard for him to keep his blood saturated with Oxygen
The blood transfusion sounds scary, but it was very straightforward and nothing to worry about. It’s obviously a fairly major procedure, but he’s noticeable better looking (e.g. pinker) since he got it, and his rate of desaturations (episodes when his blood oxygen level drops) are decreasing.
His weight is increasing nicely, 1.937kg as of today so he’s likely to hit 2kg tomorrow or the day after. The main focus for him and us now, is getting his feeding established. He’s starting to learn how to suck and has taken a few feeds from the bottle, but the complicated combination of suck, swallow and breathe is still a little bit of a challenge for him. His desaturations are most frequent when he’s feeding so most of his food is still being delivered via the tube straight into his stomach to make sure we don’t wear him out.
We’ve had several meetings with the nurses and midwives to plan for his eventual discharge. Learning about all the follow-up visits in various locations all over Dublin that we’ll need to take him to, and various practical tasks like how to perform CPR and resuscitate an infant, and a demonstration on how to bath him. It’s all helping to make us feel more ready to bring him home, but changing his nappy while he squirms and wriggles (and poos mid process) is still a fairly stressful few minutes for his daddy!
The daily grind of getting to the hospital and spending time with him is starting to take its toll, especially now that we’re being encouraged to be present for as many of his feeds as possible. We’re both very keen to get him home as soon as possible. As tiring as it will be to have to look after him 24/7, it still seems like an attractive option to just be able to do so at home rather than having to travel somewhere else…
We’re continuing to post photos and videos to the Picasa galleries and have our fingers crossed that the going home date may occur sometime towards the end of next week!