The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Sorry for taking so long to write another post. Sophie is recuperating pretty well from her surgery on Wednesday. She started eating on Saturday with a small amount of milk (10CCs), which they are increasing every 6 hours. She should be up to her full feeds (~75CCs) by Wednesday night. She's been pooping a little, which bothers her, but her surgical scars are healing nicely. The G-tube is in, and we use it for her medicine and whatever portion of her feeds that she doesn't take from the bottle. Since the surgery she has had periods where she gets really upset and shrieks her loud cry. (They even had to move her out of one pod because another baby in the pod needed quiet!) Normally she quiets down as soon as you pick her up, but not so during the last few days. But it has been less than a week since surgery, so I suppose she is allowed to complain. :-)

I have thought several times how she now looks like a "normal" baby; she's 8 lbs, can open her eyes wide, and now has nothing on her face, really for the first time since her birth:

From LGA Arrives!

The current plan is for her to go home on Friday. Yay!!!!!! That is very exciting, and at the same time, scary. No more monitors to tell me she's fine (which I'm not really worried about, but you do get used to them), and no more nurses to help (although we will have some nurses come to the house). One big convenience of having Sophie at the hospital was that everything came to her - all the doctors, all the tests, and all the medicines came to her bedside (or maybe downstairs). We will now need to keep track of her medicines/vitamins (I can think of 4 off the top of my head) and doctor's appointments (surgeon, gastroenterology, speech therapy, developmental specialists, etc. plus the normal pediatrician appointments). But at least now we can walk around with her, take her outside, and go places. Although I'm not sure how much we should be taking her out in public to keep her from getting sick. I am a little worried how she is going to fare going from the sterile hospital to our anything-but-sterile house. But at least I can keep her on clean blankets.

We have been trying to warn Owen of the change by telling him that Sophie will be coming home soon. I'm not sure how much he understands that. I'm sure he will adjust pretty well, although I'm sure there will be some jealousy. Owen started sleeping in his big boy bed (out of the crib) this past weekend. So far Owen has done really well in his new bed, but I'm scared for the time when he actually realizes that he can get out of it by himself in the middle of the night. Odds are very big that he will be jealous of where Sophie will be sleeping (our room).

Owen is continuing to delight us. I love hearing him sing (Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star), and he constantly amazes me with his memory. We have a Winnie the Pooh book that he recites whole sentences to us as we are reading. I tried playing Go Fish with him last weekend. Even though I had to pretty much walk him through the whole thing, it's exciting to know that we can now introduce more games to him. Let me know if any of you parents have recommendations on board games for this age, as I'm starting to think about Christmas presents.

This past weekend we were at a baby shower for a friend where the guests were asked to write down words of advice for the new parents. My advice was to remember that all phases will come to an end. So hang on through the bad times and cherish the good ones. I am happy to report that our "NICU phase" (which hasn't been all bad) is soon coming to an end.

I can see the light!!