*there's a busy week

Just a few of the things going on this week:

Feeding Will: this is an adventure in persistence, experience, patience, and other things we don't know much about. Feeding Will is so difficult sometimes. We have figured out that no matter how skilled we get in giving him a bottle, he isn't going to be able to eat by mouth entirely for awhile. He has the sucking/swallowing/breathing down, but the difficulty comes from the amount he has to eat every day. The doctors have him on a schedule that just doesn't give him a chance to get hungry. So we use the feeding pump that was sent home with us and the NG tube. If we could feed him less often he might take the whole bottle when it comes time to feed him, but that would mean we would have to feed him more during each feeding session to ensure he gets the total volume required for the day. Why is mixing his formula and breast milk so difficult? Those measurements are really simple, but for some reason make my head spin. It could be because we get to mix batches with ounces and teaspoons but then they switch to the metric system for the amount we actually give him. Still very doable but the numbers are too much for my tired brain.

Katie and Will: This dog of ours cried nonstop for the first day Will was home. By the middle of the second day, she looked downright haggard. When standing still she had to take a wide stance to balance the swaying from exhaustion. And the whites of her eyes were bloodshot. Normally she sleeps about 22 hours per day and with all the crying, running from room to room, trying to climb the pole of the feeding pump every time it made a noise, and seeing all the bags coming in the house (bags to her mean someone is going somewhere and she is always afraid she is getting left behind) she only got about 2 hours of sleep that first day. We were afraid Katie was going to need a new home for the sake of her sanity. But by now she has relaxed considerably and only barks at the apnea monitor when it alarms (in addition to her usual which is barking at every person, noise, or delivery truck outside the house).

Home Health Nurse! We didn't know that the doctors had ordered this as part of Will's discharge. Two visits a week for four weeks. So far she just seems to check his temperature and weight and answer questions about his spells and feeding pump but I'm so glad she does. It's nice too because I get to sneak in an occasional question about normal baby behavior that I don't know already since this is our first child. So far she hasn't just told me to go get a book about babies. Which I very much need to do!

Pediatrician - Will has an appointment with her every week for awhile, except on the weeks he sees the cardiologist. I am really impressed with this doctor so far. I met with her after Will was born. Since then she has been keeping up with him via electronic medical records and phone calls with the NICU medical team.  After examining him for the first time she literally sighed with relief and said "I feel so much better now that I've seen him and I think he looks great." I hear her practice pays close attention to their cardiac babies so I'm really glad we chose her.

There is obviously much more to talk about so I will try to do so soon...