i wasn’t at the hospital today (thought about him all day though), so mom took this photo for us. she said his cheeks looked beautiful and rosy and chunkier, and that he’d gained 47 grams since yesterday. woohoo! it’s his biggest gain so far. also that his bilirubin number dropped again, from 5.3 to 4.8. i think he must have just passed his birth weight. YAY OLIVER!
the photos are not too exciting this time, i was only there for a short time and he was sleeping. BUT, the news was exciting — oliver gained an ounce! it seems he absorbed the formula well. his diarrhea has cleared up, and the fat in his stool went from the ‘60 cateogry’ down to the ‘20 category’. what a relief to be back on the gaining weight track. claudia said his skin looked beautiful that morning, and he was sleeping very peacefully. also that he was super awake and playful.
today we learned that oliver lost 10 grams since yesterday. the doctors want to give oliver only formula for 48 hours, a formula that may help with the fat malabsorption we’ve been seeing in his stools the past few days. it will be hard for claudia to skip nursing for one more day but the doctors think the malabsorption is a transient thing. at least he had 48 hours of pure breasmilk before this, so he’s gotten all his immunoglobulins in. tomorrow is a new day and maybe we’ll hear some good news.
and despite having a little more runny poop this morning, oliver seemed very alert and even more energetic. he’s really not a complainer. also his hair seems to have doubled in length since yesterday.
Ingrid created her own NICU here at home. The 3 babies in our NICU are named “Pomegranate”, “Monk” and “Gussy”. I asked her if she was the nurse and she said: No mommy, I’m the doctor.
it’s been a rough couple of days. oliver has had diarrhea and lost a little bit of weight. it’s disappointing given how well things were going just a few days before. despite all this, he looked boy-ish and adorable in his little “jeans”.
he’s really starting to look around the room now, almost like he’s noticing it for the first time. i love to see the curiousity in his eyes.
he was sleeping when i got there, but it was time to weigh him and then breastfeed, so claudia woke him up. he nursed for maybe 5-10 minutes, then was up for a while. once he woke up, he was as alert as i've ever seen him.
this one is my favorite of the day, i think.
waking him up took a few tries.
there he is, wide awake!
he latched on quickly and was sucking vigorously.then a big loud cart rolled in and distracted him.
oliver is still sleeping a lot, but all that sleeping seems to be helping. yesterday he gained 33 grams (yay!), this morning another 15, and his bilirubin is down again, from 6 to 5.3! the reading before it had decreased from 7.1 to 6, but that reading spanned 4 days instead of 3. it’s wonderful news!
he’s got a bigger crib now, and one of the nurses brought him a little mirror to play with. you can’t see, but he’s wearing a cute little newborn nightgown.
he’s still nursing, but hasn’t got the energy to nurse more than a couple of minutes. they’re supplementing claudia’s breastmilk with a lipids mix, and claudia’s also boosting up her milk by taking coconut oil.
i only got a few photos – it was nursing time and oliver was feeling squirmy.
Oliver was super awake today. Claudia drank like 2 tablespoons of coffee earlier, so maybe that had something to do with it. Anyway, I got to change his diaper and hear him fuss a little. Claudia got to hold him today, outside of the NICU, in one of the sleeping rooms. One of the nurses snuck him out, to cheer her up. When I arrived at 5pm, he had just had a good nursing, about half an hour long. Ingrid and I stayed until about 8, and the 3 kids ate dinner together and then ran a lot in the huge courtyard by the cafeteria.
Oh and I almost forgot – Ingrid got to meet Oliver in person! We think he smiled at her. Unfortunately, we got kicked out of the NICU a few minutes later, when the nurse learned that Ingrid is not a sibling. BUT, it was totally worth the lecture.
Claudia tried holding him upright because he was fidgeting in her lap. He opened his eyes wide when his face was so close to Claudia’s. It was really cute. I think he liked being this close to mom, because he fell right asleep.
claudia had a hard time waking him up- he was totally out! once he realized what he was being woken up for though, he was happy to comply. only his second time nursing and he already loves it. there’s one picture where he looks like he’s at the barber getting a haircut.
