We have a lot of good news, starting with the triumphant arrival of Lorelai Kate into our humble abode. We brought her home on Saturday afternoon, and she is just a fabulous baby. We gave her her first non hospital bath, and she’s doing all the little things babies do. Eating, sleeping and pooping. She really only cries when she gets cold, usually when her diaper is getting changed. The rest of the time, she gives us a good indication of what is wrong, and if we try to fix it, she’s happy. By the way, those of you who told me the “your own baby’s poop don’t stink”, you lied. And formula poop is a lot worse than breast milk poop.

Reece is also doing very well. They moved him out of the NICU yesterday, and he is now off his IV feed and receiving all food by mouth, though some of it he gets by a gavage tube down his nose, since his sucking reflex just needs to be strengthened a little so he can eat everything he needs to. It appears that he will come home Tuesday or Wednesday! It’ll be busy around here, but not having to drive back and forth to the hospital to see Reece and deliver breast milk a couple of times a day will make things a little easier, and having him here will make us very happy!

Lisa is doing well, as long as she doesn’t laugh too hard, her pain is minimal. I’m in good shape and we’re developing a system of feeding and changing that gives us at least some time during the day to get things done. We’ll see how much busier life gets later this week. I’ll try to post some pictures and video’s later tonight.

It looks like they will be discharging Lisa today from the hospital, but as of 10:30 PM last night, a decision hadn’t been made on Lorelai yet. She’s doing really well, but she is pretty small. She’s down to about 4lb 8.6 oz. It’s a fairly normal amount of weight to drop after birth, so they are not concerned. They may just want to keep her checked in for a day or two more so they can monitor her temp and feeding, and get her to start putting on some weight.

The really great news was that we were able to go down to the NICU last night and spend some quality time with Reese. We checked his temperature (which was excellent), and changed his diaper, which was full of muconium, really sticky, tar like black poop that all babies have. This was also a really good sign. Of course it took us a while to clean him up, and during that time he decided to have another poop, and let the liquid artillery fly, thoroughly soaking Lisa’s hand and much of the incubator. I think we went through about 10 wipes cleaning him up.

Once that was done, they weighed him (4lb 8.8oz). Then I dressed him in some snazzy PJs and we took him out of the incubator, and Lisa tried to breast feed him. It took all of about 30 seconds, and he hooked right on and started sucking. We don’t know if he was able to get anything, but he kept sucking for about 15 minutes, and is a complete natural. After that Lisa just held onto him for another twenty minutes or so, and rocked him to sleep. I can’t express how amazing this kid is. He’s super patient when we were cleaning him up and only cried when he got a little cold. He watches everything you do, and listens to your voice. Lorelai likes to struggle and cry when you are changing her, and likes to be swaddled really tighly, but Reece just takes each environmental change like it is something to be studied.

Reece is probably going to remain in the NICU for a while yet. He needs to really start eating, and their requirements for letting him go are pretty stringent. He currently has what is called a PIC-Line in him, which is an IV placed in the top of his head, with a catheter that runs all the way down through an artery to his superior venacava (sp?) and they feed him that way. He has to be able to eat at least as much as they are putting into him via IV before they will move him out of ICU.

Lisa is doing really well. We’re going to get a family room at the hospital so she can stay with the babies and try to feed them every 3 hours. I’ve been doing the day shifts so I can be there when the doctors come through, and Lisa’s mom has been helping out at night. There’s been some really long days this week. Yesterday was the shortest of the week for me, and I was at the hospital for about 16 hours, and that’s be the short day so far. Lisa gets 2 hour cat naps a few times a day when we send Lorelai down to the nursery for a bit.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. More updates to come as things change. I need to finish my breakfast and get back to the hospital.

We got word a bit ago that it looks like Lisa and Lorelai wil be going home tomorrow (Thursday). Reece is doing really well, and is off all meds and extra oxygen, and we will try to feed him tonight, which is really excellent. It means Lisa and I will finally get to hold him! The next big step is to see if he can maintain his own body temperature in an open crib.

There is a good chance he will be moved from the NICU to the Interim Care Center, which is a lot more relaxed, but still fully monitored. It’s actually a matter of how many babies they have in each area, and right now there are more resources available in the NICU than here (I’m actually in the Interim Care Center typing this), so they’ll keep him in NICU until he gets to the top of the “time to move them out” list in the NICU. He’s pretty close right now, but there’s no rush to do it. Either way, he’s going to be staying here at least 2 more days, maybe longer. A lot will be dteremined by how well he latches on and feeds tonight.