Evening Update (Sunday 12/28)

I spent the evening at the NICU until the mandatory 7:00 PM break. Carolyn is keeping away while she fights off a nasty case of the epizootic. (So far, I've been spared.) When I walked into the step-down NICU, I noticed that the lights were turned up higher than in the critical care NICU, and that there was new age music playing softly. The step down NICU truly is a different world. On my way out, I looked through the windows into the critical care section. It was dim, and every baby seemed to be hooked up to a Christmas tree of drug pumps. Carolyn and I weren't looking forward to seeing Max graduate to the step down unit because we liked the higher nurse to patient ratio and the easy proximity to the doctors. But he's now much stronger than the patients in the critical care section.

The NICU team have cleared Max to try to take 5 to 10 ccs by mouth at each feeding (with the remaining 50+ ccs delivered via nasal tube as before). Nurse C. reported that Max got 5 ccs down on his own but then didn't seem to be interested in getting the remaining amount. She reported that Max coughed up a biggish blob of mucus all on his own--he didn't require suction.

I held Max vertically for about an hour, but then he seemed to start working hard to breathe and his sats dropped off slightly. I moved him to a horizontal position, which he seemed to enjoy much more. He was asleep most of the time, although he did open his eyes at me a couple of times. He kept on eyelid cracked for a while too. I'm not sure if he was playing possum or not. His hair is starting to grow in, including his eyebrows. To my eye, he seems set--like his brother--to inherit his mother's eyebrows.