Monday, May 7th: Finnegan likes food!

Finnegan's "little" belly! :)

Christine:
I spent the night at the hospital, and I slept surprisingly well! I had to wake up a couple times to pump, but I easily fell back to sleep. In fact, I actually slept through my alarm! Who'd have thought this vinyl pull-out couch would be so comfy!? :) Ian stayed at home because he had a follow-up with his doctor and was also starting back up at work this week at a reduced schedule.

I quickly got it together to go shower. When I stepped out of the shower, I found myself on the floor. Their shower system is not the best, given that all the water flows out of the shower onto the floor, so that when you step out of the shower, you step into big pools of water. Having showered there several times, I knew this; however, despite my caution, my foot slipped and I did the mini splits. Thankfully, I just banged my arm on one of the safety rails that I couldn't quite grab. The pregnancy padding on my tooshie took care of the rest. What a way to start the morning!

After I quickly pumped, I realized I was going to be late for my follow-up appointment at 9:30 in the hospital. I knew my appointment was on the sixth floor, but I didn't quite know where it was. The only time I was taken up there was on a gurney or on a wheelchair trying to ignore contractions. So, I grabbed a couple granola bars (Thanks, Kim!) and headed through the hospital in search of the Maternal-Fetal Diagnostic Center where my follow-up appointment was to be held.

About 10 minutes later, I found myself in a small little hallway that they called the Maternal-Fetal Diagnostic Center. I'm not sure why they called it a center when it consisted of 2 procedure rooms and 3 offices, but whatever floats your boat! :) The nurse took me in one of the rooms where I was to lay down. While another nurse took my blood pressure, the nurse that greeted me said that she was glad I was doing better because the last time she saw me I was a "bad patient." I quickly realized that she was the nurse who found me in the bathroom. She kind of retold her version of the story and giggled. I fake laughed with her but swallowed back a hard lump in my throat as I looked across the hallway at the ultrasound room where the whole thing went down. I didn't realize how much all of this effected me. Needless to say, my appointment was painless. The nurse checked my incision and said that the steri-strips that were hold the incision in place were ready to come off whenever they fell off and that everything was healing nicely. My BP was 130/90, higher than it has ever been for me, so they kept me about 10 minutes before rechecking and then letting me go. The pathology test from my placenta just reconfirmed that there was a placental abruption. All other tests came back normal. Therefore, it's very possible that Dr. Leonardi's scenario is true: the subchorionic bleed caused little contractions which caused the clot  which caused more not so little contractions which caused the abruption. The reason for the subchorionic bleed? Who knows.

Little Finn right before his feeding time.
This is when he is the most alert!

After the appointment, I came down to have breakfast. I dozed in and out of sleep while watching Finnegan throw his arms around in the air and kick his feet up when it got closer to his feeding time. Without fail, about a half hour before his feeding time, Finnegan will start looking around and throwing his hands all over the place. Frequently his hands end up in his mouth. That smart boy knows when food is coming! :)

While rounds usually take place around 11:30 for us, the doctor didn't come around until about 2:30pm. It wasn't a big deal for me considering I had my book and the z's to keep me company. Rounds were short and sweet. Finnegan only had 7 bradys yesterday (one less than the day before!). Six of them required gentle stimulation and the other was self-correcting. I'm anxious to see his brady count tomorrow because since this morning, I only recall 3 bradys, 2 of which were self-correcting! Because he has been such a good boy with his breathing, the doctor knocked his forced breaths down from 25 to 20. The doctor was impressed and said how amazing the difference a couple days can make with regards to his maturity. Otherwise, he will be on to full feedings tomorrow. The past couple of days, they have been weening him off of his TPN IV and gradually increasing the amount of food he gets. As of tomorrow, he'll get his "max caloric" intake. As he grows, the amount of calories will vary, which means the amount of food he will get will vary as well (aka more food!). The doctor was only concerned with his calcium levels which were a bit low; however, she said she wanted to wait to see what happens this week before modifying anything. So, she said we'll wait and let him grow with his full feeds, and recheck on Monday. Tomorrow he will be getting a metabolic test which looks for a LOT of different disorders that he could have dealing with his metabolism. All babies in the NICU get this at day of life 2, 14, and 28. Other good news: His jaundice has been resolved, so no more phototherapy and in about a month (or 31 weeks gestation for Finn) we will begin trying to nipple/breastfeed! Right now, whenever the nurses have tried to give him a pacifier while he feeds (which has been twice), he bradys within a minute or two. He's not quite there yet, but my goodness how far he has come!

Finnegan's weight chart. He started at
785g andis now at 820!

After his 8:30pm feeding, Finnegan and daddy got to have some Kangaroo bonding time. This is one of my favorite things to see. Ian and Finn just look so happy together! :)

Ian - I spent my day traveling all over. I went for my appointment at 9:00 only to be told that the doctor was in surgery until 10:30, so I could come back then or at 11:00. The phones were ringing off the hook, so I didn't bother complaining. Maybe someone had a surgery scheduled last minute and she was trying to call me but the phone kept ringing in the office - who knows, I didn't really care. I drove to work to pickup a cell-card for the laptop so I could do a bit of work remotely without relying on the hospital's wifi which blocks VOIP and IM communication. I walked one of my coworkers through one of the tasks I normally do but hadn't had the chance to fully document yet.

I went back for my appointment and found the reason for the little sting of pain I had been having was a suture I kept irritating. Thanks for missing that prompt-care doc! We scheduled a repeat surgery to put a fistula plug back in on Thursday - hopefully this one stays in!

After that I tried to get the cell-card for the laptop to work, but no matter what I did it wouldn't work. Turns out I was given a card that had a note "Use this one the least" which is code for "This one doesn't work, but we're going to keep it on the shelf anyways". Grrr. The got another one from ISU's Telecom department and I came back to pick it up. That one worked. I also talked through with my manager the things I should be focusing on. I didn't accomplish a single thing all day, but hey, that's what the last 2 months have been! Maybe tomorrow will be different.

As you can see from the pictures above, I got to kangaroo with Finn! We snuggled for a little over two hours. He had a small self-correcting brady about halfway through and then near the end he had another that needed gentle stimulation. I was hungry so I decided he'd do better in his isolette ;).