Countdown till baby's home

Every day it seems like i have been getting up and ready earlier and earlier to go to the NICU to see if my little one can come home sooner than later. Today was one of those days that I thought maybe today is the day... if anything, he would come home at night. I was wrong. I waited for hours with my little hungry and gassy baby (this is nothing new, he has always been gassy- takes after his daddy i guess :-P) until the Dr came and made rounds. I asked when the baby would be coming home- hoping it would be tonight, but Dr said that tomorrow is the day if there are no "episodes" over night.

I am getting tired of hearing the word 'episode'... its all I hear and it is all the nurses tell the parents on the phone or when they see them. It must be the way that they were trained but I have come to realize that some nurses are just cold bitter people and others really care about taking care of their patients- other peoples kids. It must be hard looking after three or four crying babies for hours on end when they have all these special needs and medicines, each being hooked up to individual monitors which chime simultaneously driving whoever is in the room crazy until they stop. Those nurses are saints, because being in there for over a month and seeing what goes on, I am not sure I would be able to handle it. I did notice that some nurses don't even hear the chimes anymore because they are so used to them which is not good. One word of advice: Talk to every nurse you can and get information out of them... like how much they know about your babys health even though they say to check with he Dr... ask what different words mean and really listen to them. Yesterday I had asked the difference between the numbers on the monitors and I got a half hour lecture on why the first is different from the third, what the second means and why if the first and last number get too high or low it can mean something bad. All these things to think about and it makes me stress out knowing I cannot rely on a monitor when he comes home because I will not have one there!

I have noticed that my little man has developed a bigger appetite in the last couple of days. There is a pattern when he eats. He eats till he feels like he has to burp, then while you are burping him he either tries to sleep or push something out the other end, then after trying to burp him, he either eats more from his bottle or refuses to eat till its warmed up or he feels hungry again. He really knows what he wants and I have to cater to him to get him to eat. I must admit, I really don't mind doing it because I don't want him to starve and since he is my first I know I can spoil him a little bit.

Since he was up the whole time I was with him this morning, I feel like I need to take a cat nap before I go back to see him. I will let you know what happens when I go to see him later this afternoon!

-J