June 12 - Just the facts, ma'am

22:00 - It's late, I'm tired, Phoo's at the hospital, so this is not going to be a marathon post....

The OT came today for Max' 11:00 feeding. She said that the "suck, swallow, breathe" coordination of bottle feeding is the highest level of functioning that Max would have to do in the hospital, and that the inability to eat is the #1 prohibitor of babies going home. No pressure, right? I was told not to expect too much, this is the first try of many, the most important thing is not how many ounces he eats, but rather whether his vital signs remain good, etc. The OT held him and walked me through how she was going to try to feed him. He wasn't really awake so I didn't know what to think; she said that if she waited for babies to wake up to feed them that all the babies would be really hungry. So how did Max do? Our Boy performed like a C-H-A-M-P! See for yourself!

We still have some work to do; Max' suck is very strong so he would pull too much milk and cough it up. Although it was scary, the fact that his reflexes kicked in and prevented him from inhaling the milk was positive. He ended up drinking about 7ML and we're very, very proud of him....

I was able to hold him this afternoon after he received his platelets. (Yesterday they were 39K, this morning they were 23K.) He slept through it, and wouldn't you know, as soon as I put him down / moved the recliner back / de-gowned and de-gloved / scrubbed up / gathered my things / got my keys out of my purse / leaned over to say goodbye, HE WOKE UP. How many of you could leave THIS FACE?

Even though it was 15:45 and I needed to go home, pump, then pick up Meaghan, I just couldn't go. So I re-gowned, re-gloved, re-rolled out the recliner, and stayed. And he stayed awake for me until 16:30. It was wonderful....

Final note: his hair is coming in an auburny-red. I even got a good view of his eyelashes and they're red too!