Day 7, Friday

Holy cow!  I just looked at the 'pageviews' and it appears that someone/lots of people are reading this.  Thank you for all your continued support.  As we know, this is going to be a very long road, and your support is going to be just as important in 4 months as it is now - this wee man has a lot of fighting to do!

Today we did a daytime visit and caught a glimpse into what a pain in the butt traffic is going to be for daytime visits.  We timed it so that we left at 10, came home at 2, and it was just over an hour both ways - not too bad, but the added headache for Scott was the traffic and the massive amount of idiot drivers on the road.  At a time when we're all about minimizing stress, driving stress isn't something we want to deal with.  We'll figure it out.  Either train down, or evening visits will be more frequent once I'm recovered.

Visit was good.  He's still on the ventilator, but he's more stable and comfortable.  He wasn't handling all the 'handling' very well and was requiring much more oxygen during those times.  He'd had a head ultrasound, and an echocardiogram this morning, so he was tuckered out from all that action. After we left, they successfully inserted his PICC line (I have a handout on that and I will explain later).  They'd tried 2 times previously to get this line in, but they were unsuccessful. If they hadn't gotten it on this try, he would've had to go to sick kids to get it done.  Phewwf.  So now, his umbilical line is out, which is a good thing.  This new line will allow them to have to prick him less b/c they can take blood samples from the line rather than having to prick his heel.

He looks like a little surfer dude - he's got blond blond eyebrows and blond fuzzy hair. He wears his diaper super-low as to not interfere with the umbilical line - reminds me of low-riding board shorts.  On our drive in, I saw a surfer-theme in the window of Pottery Barn Kids... a little inspiration for his nursery that we have yet to complete :-).

He's also making friends in high places - his night nurse from the last couple nights (Kathy) told me yesterday that she'd like to be his primary as well. She is really nice, and took lots of time to explain things, and seemed to really like him also. So if we get Nancy and her as his primary's, we'll be really happy.  They'll be good advocates for him.

Missing Sadie today - after our visit, I took a longer than anticipated nap (as did she) so we've got a couple hours with her but she'll still sleep at mom and dad's.  They're all coming down tomorrow for a quick visit.  Scott's family coming Sunday.  We're keeping visits to just family for now - the NICU isn't really keen on too many people coming in and out (germs and parent's privacy are the main reasons for this).  As time goes on, they're ok with me being in there with one other person but more than that and it's too much.

Hopefully he gets a good rest tonight - tomorrow will be sure to bring more tests and changes.  It'll be weird going to bed without seeing him, but he's just a phone call away - the NICU never closes.

My blog goal tomorrow - some pictures.