Jackson certainly does! He has no problem pooping or peeing whenever he feels like it. He is like a little Justin Bieber. If you choose to clean the restroom when he needs to go, he will pee in your mop bucket. Apparently there is no need to have a diaper on to unload. I guess you can't expect a baby to consider innocent bystanders when the watergun is loaded and exposed to the elements. Shame on me for having my finger so close to the feces volcano. Just because I just put on a fresh diaper does not mean he won't poop immediately after I get his clothes back on. Hey, it's my fault for not pointing the gun down last time I changed his diaper, so I can't fuss too much when he pees on my stomach while nursing.
This extremely timely and appropriate onesie was given to Jackson by one of my favorite students (not that I have favorite students; I like them all equally of course). His mom works in the NICU so he has the inside scoop on what is going on with Jackson. This is a prime example of why I say middle schoolers get a bad rep. These kids have always really seemed to care about what is going on in my life and they always have my back. They are old enough to understand, and not too old to be to cool to care. In the card he wrote, "Good luck with baby Jackson!". When asked by his mom why he said "good luck", he replied, "Because it's a baby." Touché young man, touché.
"Because it's a baby."
Jackson presents of all kinds of little mysteries that make this simple statement completely valid. Why does he bear down and turn red and purse his lips and squirm one minute and smile and relax the next? It is gas? Is it reflux? Is he trying to keep things interesting? Why does he choose to poop right after I put a fresh diaper on? Why does he fluctuate his saturated oxygen levels from the mid-eighties to high nineties within seconds?
I guess the real question is, what will we do without all these fancy machines and monitors at home? In a way it will be comforting to not have alarms going off every time he is struggling a little bit. If his heart rate drops for a few seconds or if he is not breathing efficiently enough for there to be a high enough amount of hemoglobin in his blood, we are not going to necessarily know. We will have to rely on the fact we have a breathing baby who is pink, not blue. How medieval.
It seems that Jackson has turned a corner and we are in the home stretch of this whole NICU ordeal. He is doing very well and his neonatologists are very pleased with his progress. Apparently, most babies have one issue that plagues them the most out of the four typical preemie issues they have to overcome to get out of the NICU: lung development, body temperature regulation, growth, and feeding. Jackson is a lung baby. He grows pretty significantly almost every day and he is a little feeding machine. He maintained his body temperature well enough to get out of his isolette and into an open crib. We just can't get him off his oxygen just yet. He is being continuously weaned off his oxygen flow and every day we get closer, but we just can't seem to cross that finish line just yet. Fortunately, they send babies home on oxygen machines if they can do everything else. Hopefully we won't have to do that; I am so tired of alarms going off every time he is a little low on dissolved oxygen.
Jackson really is doing great. Yesterday he fed at breast four times and he is well on his way to doing it again today. Last night he took his first bottle from a nurse. He has accomplished more than half of his feeding plan (4 x at breast with me during the day, 4 x at bottle with a nurse at night) in a matter of days after putting the plan in place. If he starts taking a full bottle at every night feeding, and taking a bottle for any quantity he does not take at breast rather than via gavage, we are in business. Once he can take all of his feedings by mouth we can take out the feeding tube and scoot on out of here.
Daddy got to give Jackson a bath in the sink yesterday. His umbilical cord has fallen off so he can have a real bath rather than a sponge bath. Jackson did great and relaxed nicely in the warm water. He did not get too cold and was able to maintain his body temperature. Daddy did a great job keeping him safe and calm throughout the process. Again, we are getting so much great experience having him in the NICU as we are surrounded by all of these professionals. However, it is time to start thinking about going home.
The doctor told me today that we are looking at 7-10 days at this point if Jackson stays on track. He is at the precious 36 week mark today, which is the time when most babies start to really excel. We have been told that there is usually one magic day when all the sudden everything comes together, and this typically happens between the 36th and 37th weeks of gestation. The idea that he can have good days and bad days and then everything suddenly turns around has been keeping me going. I really hope that happens for him this week, but if not I am going to be okay with that. As much as I want him home, it has to be on his time and when he is ready. It is my job to stick it out with him and be patient.
It has grown increasingly difficult to leave him at night. I spend all day sitting with him with him skin-to-skin with me because research shows they grow and develop faster this way. Unless I have something I have to go do between feedings, I am with him. It is a 10 hour day full time job, but soon it will be 24 hour days so I have to keep that in mind when things seem hard (at least we will be home though). By the end of the day, I feel like I am ready to go home and relax. However, I find it more and more difficult every day to walk away and leave him. I feel like he has matured into a "real baby" and we are more and more bonded so he knows I am leaving him. The guilt is so overwhelming I can't walk away until he closes his eyes and can't see me leave. The reasonable part of my brain knows he won't remember this but the new mommy part has a terrible time comprehending the idea that we don't spend 24/7 together. The nurses here refer to my condition as "NICUitis". I hear the cure is when the baby goes home.
"Because it's a baby."
Jackson presents of all kinds of little mysteries that make this simple statement completely valid. Why does he bear down and turn red and purse his lips and squirm one minute and smile and relax the next? It is gas? Is it reflux? Is he trying to keep things interesting? Why does he choose to poop right after I put a fresh diaper on? Why does he fluctuate his saturated oxygen levels from the mid-eighties to high nineties within seconds?
I guess the real question is, what will we do without all these fancy machines and monitors at home? In a way it will be comforting to not have alarms going off every time he is struggling a little bit. If his heart rate drops for a few seconds or if he is not breathing efficiently enough for there to be a high enough amount of hemoglobin in his blood, we are not going to necessarily know. We will have to rely on the fact we have a breathing baby who is pink, not blue. How medieval.
It seems that Jackson has turned a corner and we are in the home stretch of this whole NICU ordeal. He is doing very well and his neonatologists are very pleased with his progress. Apparently, most babies have one issue that plagues them the most out of the four typical preemie issues they have to overcome to get out of the NICU: lung development, body temperature regulation, growth, and feeding. Jackson is a lung baby. He grows pretty significantly almost every day and he is a little feeding machine. He maintained his body temperature well enough to get out of his isolette and into an open crib. We just can't get him off his oxygen just yet. He is being continuously weaned off his oxygen flow and every day we get closer, but we just can't seem to cross that finish line just yet. Fortunately, they send babies home on oxygen machines if they can do everything else. Hopefully we won't have to do that; I am so tired of alarms going off every time he is a little low on dissolved oxygen.
Jackson really is doing great. Yesterday he fed at breast four times and he is well on his way to doing it again today. Last night he took his first bottle from a nurse. He has accomplished more than half of his feeding plan (4 x at breast with me during the day, 4 x at bottle with a nurse at night) in a matter of days after putting the plan in place. If he starts taking a full bottle at every night feeding, and taking a bottle for any quantity he does not take at breast rather than via gavage, we are in business. Once he can take all of his feedings by mouth we can take out the feeding tube and scoot on out of here.
Daddy got to give Jackson a bath in the sink yesterday. His umbilical cord has fallen off so he can have a real bath rather than a sponge bath. Jackson did great and relaxed nicely in the warm water. He did not get too cold and was able to maintain his body temperature. Daddy did a great job keeping him safe and calm throughout the process. Again, we are getting so much great experience having him in the NICU as we are surrounded by all of these professionals. However, it is time to start thinking about going home.
The doctor told me today that we are looking at 7-10 days at this point if Jackson stays on track. He is at the precious 36 week mark today, which is the time when most babies start to really excel. We have been told that there is usually one magic day when all the sudden everything comes together, and this typically happens between the 36th and 37th weeks of gestation. The idea that he can have good days and bad days and then everything suddenly turns around has been keeping me going. I really hope that happens for him this week, but if not I am going to be okay with that. As much as I want him home, it has to be on his time and when he is ready. It is my job to stick it out with him and be patient.
It has grown increasingly difficult to leave him at night. I spend all day sitting with him with him skin-to-skin with me because research shows they grow and develop faster this way. Unless I have something I have to go do between feedings, I am with him. It is a 10 hour day full time job, but soon it will be 24 hour days so I have to keep that in mind when things seem hard (at least we will be home though). By the end of the day, I feel like I am ready to go home and relax. However, I find it more and more difficult every day to walk away and leave him. I feel like he has matured into a "real baby" and we are more and more bonded so he knows I am leaving him. The guilt is so overwhelming I can't walk away until he closes his eyes and can't see me leave. The reasonable part of my brain knows he won't remember this but the new mommy part has a terrible time comprehending the idea that we don't spend 24/7 together. The nurses here refer to my condition as "NICUitis". I hear the cure is when the baby goes home.
In the meantime I will treasure the time we have together and continue to spend evenings and nights at home to maintain my sanity. Jackson will be here, pottying like a rockstar.
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Hang in there!
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