Our little family is complete

I am so happy to announce that Owen came home last night. I think the nurses, while obviously glad to see him go home, were a little sad to be losing the chance to see him every couple of days - he really was a favorite there.

Owen slept through the ride home, which is no surprise, I guess. I'm proud to say that I do not have the same problem with a baby in a car seat as I do with a cat in a cat carrier (cat in a box becomes just a box, right? And you can be a klutz and smack it in to walls and stuff?).We all hung out on the couch and watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (it's officially fall...we're not THAT early on it), then settled in for our first night with an infant. Somehow exhaustion overcame my oh-my-god-he's-not-going-to-make-it-through-the-night panic and I did actually get a few hours of sleep last night, between multiple meals and diaper changes. Holy crap, my parents had warned me that babies make a lot of noise (even in their sleep), and they weren't kidding! Owen is constantly making little chatty noises. But, thankfully, he doesn't seem to be as bothered by the lack of light and constant noise as most NICU babies are - in fact, he appears to be one darned content kid.

Madison and Paul had mixed reactions. Paul was only mildly interested, then pretty much was like, "yeah it's a baby, life goes on." I think Madison believes we got a new hairless noisy cat. And, she was pretty upset that the bassinet is not hers, because everything in the house is hers. Including the new hairless noisy cat.

Almost there...

Owen's up to 7/8 feeds off the gavage now. Also this week, he passed his hearing test, passed his car seat challenge (doesn't that sound like something on a game show?), passed his first occupational therapist evaluation, and passed a lot of gas. I also am now allowed to non-non-nutritively breastfeed once a day. He does this hilarious ravenous baby thing before he settles in to it - I'd post video but it wouldn't be rated G. Take my word that it's very amusing.

We are incredibly close to taking him home, so it's really frustrating that the doctors continue to say "expect that he'll be home around his due date." Man, that's still three weeks away! So I sort of pushed him on it...the only thing holding him up is eating unassisted, and when I asked the doctor if there's any reason to expect his bottling advancement rate to slow down, he said no. Which, of course, puts him at feeding on his own in the next day or two. Which puts him home next week. To which the doctor replied, again, expect that he'll be home around his due date. The most promising thing I've heard yet was "plan on two more weeks and be pleasantly surprised."

Fingers crossed for a very pleasant surprise in the next few days.

Weekend update

There's not a whole lot of news on the Owen front. He's taking a bottle every 3rd feed now, but that's the only major change since the last post. If he continues to do well, he'll probably be trying every feed through bottle in a couple more days. I'm still waiting on the ok to do non-non-nutritive breastfeeding, or, you know, normal breastfeeding.

We did have a pretty frustrating night over the weekend. The NICU has been a little understaffed anyway, but it was really bad Saturday night. I don't want to put the whole rant down - it gets my blood pressure too high - but it boils down to:

• No security at the door (it's locked, but they were just letting people in without checking wristbands)
• Owen was entirely ignored for hours (including missing scheduled care)
• Owen's nurse had never worked in a NICU before, and hadn't been to this hospital before. This isn't a knock against her, but against all of the people who didn't think to prep her for the evening...or maybe not assign her to a kid who was due for care right when she walked in the door.
• Owen's feed was so late that he went from a little awake and a little hungry, to very awake and very hungry (you know, a good time to be trying to bottle him since his biggest problem is falling asleep while eating), to very awake, very hungry, and very pissed off (ok, now it's going to be difficult to feed him because he's antsy, but we'll make it work), to so pissed off that he wore himself out and fell back asleep, and the feed had to be done through gavage. Oh yeah, did I mention that being able to take all feeds without gavage is his only hurdle to coming home?

Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off. Thankfully, the last couple of nights have been better staffed. I will say though, all the effort they put in to make us feel comfortable that our kid was in good hands was pretty blown in that hour. I know he's in room two and doesn't need as much care, but as my mom put it, if he didn't need medical supervision anymore, he'd be home.

Oh, and to top things off, the espresso maker died the next morning. And the Redskins lost.

It's ok, I have really easy access to adorable baby therapy.

Enjoying a meal from Dad. Also, I don't know what it is, but anytime Adam wears this shirt, he gets his picture taken.

Owen didn't want any more pictures, so neither did I.

Nana makes the best hats.

It's ok, little guy - the Skins'll get 'em next time! (note: I had to crop my boobs out of this picture, because Adam can't be trusted with the camera)

Get used to having your eyes poked...

Owen got his eyes checked yesterday; click here if you want to learn all about retinopathy of prematurity. The good thing is that he passed with flying colors (I think there's no vision pun intended, but maybe there was a little intent). The bad things are that (1) it's impossible to explain the steps of an eye exam to an infant, (2) it's terrifying to watch even a trained professional jab your child's eyes with a stick, and (3) Owen's probably got a lifetime of trained professionals jabbing his eyes with sticks in his future. I guess I'm exaggerating a little, but judging by the genes that went in to this mix, he will be stuck with regular trips to an optometrist, and I'd rank the glaucoma test right up there with a stick in the eye.

I should say "can't expect anything major" more often

Because apparently, jinxing works in both directions.

Last night, Owen got his very first bottle feed. The nurse started him off so that she could show us all the little things that years worth of NICU experience will teach you - of course, the one she can't teach us is the incredible confidence and comfort the nurses have when handling the babies. We still feel like he should have "FRAGILE" stamped all over him, and the nurses fling 'em around like they're tossing pizza dough or something.

Anyway.

I took over after his nurse was confident that he was taking to it well enough. He did a full third of his feed last night through bottle - the nurses don't like going over 30 minutes by bottle because then the babies are just burning calories - but that's really good work for his first time. He's only so-so at pacing himself, mostly because he suddenly decides that milk is too awesome to bother pausing for breath (an aside...I was suddenly reminded about a certain cousin who feels like most activities are too awesome to bother pausing to go to the bathroom. I guess this is Owen's future as well). He's going to be on the bottle at least once a day; I imagine that number will go up once he's able to complete a feed and/or exert a little patience with that whole breathing thing.

We were too excited to remember to take pictures of this event, but in consolation, here's Adam trying to wear Owen's Packers hat. Owen was not amused.

I can't lift anything heavier than my baby

Doctor's orders, for a couple more weeks. But at this rate, I'll be allowed to lift 6 pounds next week. That's right, we are solidly over the five pound mark and gaining steadily. And, I've been slow to report, Owen's graduated to room two. It is noisy in there! That's what happens when you're in the room where all the babies know how to breathe.

Other than that, there's generally not much to report. That's pretty much what we can expect for a while longer, though. In the meantime, pictures.

Adam has apologized profusely to Owen for gifting him with these cowlicks.

Dressed up for the fins...apparently he was bad luck, though. We tried clapping his hands together and saying "we believe in dolphins", but I guess that only works for fairies.

Check out the new digs!

I've been reluctant to post this update because it didn't last very long last time it happened...but it appears that Owen is fully upgraded to a big boy crib. They tried it once before but his temp dropped too much overnight and he had to be moved back in to the Giraffe. It's flippin' cold in the NICU at night though, so I can't really fault him for it. But, he's been back in the crib now for a couple of days, so I feel comfortable that I won't jinx him by letting everyone know.

The only big boy crib in the NICU currently!

Proof that there's an Owen under all of that.

 Also, and I'm knocking on wood as I type this, Owen has gained weight for two nights in a row now, has minimal residuals, no spit up, and is no longer on continuous feed (that's a good thing). We started non-nutritive breast feeding yesterday - it's sort of a practice run for the real thing, with a minimal chance for aspirating - and he took to it really well. And it entirely knocked him out. Nothing quite like a boob to put a guy to sleep.

It's been a busy week for visitors, too. Owen's now met all his grandparents (we're still waiting for him to fill out the scorecard). I'm a bonehead and forgot to give Adam the camera last night while he was visiting with his parents, but I do at least have some shots with my dad.

Chillin' with Granddad.

Showing Granddad how poorly his hats fit. And, soaking in the comfort of an LA Stanley Cup champions shirt. Owen slept through that game, but thankfully my dad still has it on the dvr. I'm thinking of getting a transcript of the game's announcing so I can read it to him as a bedtime story.

It's a weird thing, grief (K)

Keira finally came home yesterday. It's painful, but there was some peace to be found in not having that looming over us anymore. I'm not sure what presentation could possibly have been better, but there was something so absurd about having my daughter's ashes handed to me in a gift bag. I'm not sure if it's me cracking a little or healing, but that started my turn towards my (ab)normal reaction to tragedy, which is this weird form of dark humor. There have been a lot of tears already and I know there are many yet to come, and as badly as I wish that I could hear her giggle back at me, it does feel good to be able to laugh.