Day 75: So Much to Report
I have so many exciting things to report today, I don't even know where to start...
I spent the night at the hospital with Gabe last night. There's a pull out bed in his room, so I was able to actually spend an entire night with my baby! That said, it is rather strange to have to do a 15 second surgical scrub every time you get up to use the bathroom... I also had to do a two minute scrub in the middle of the night just because it had been six hours since my last two minute scrub. That's one way to make sure that you're good and awake at 4am...
Anyway, it was good to be at the hospital all night because it meant that we had multiple opportunities to work on breastfeeding. Since he's so small (34 weeks yesterday), he doesn't wake up ready to breastfeed every single time quite yet, which makes it complicated when I'm not at the hospital all of the time. But we decided to give it a try last night and he took 10ml on his first try! The nurse was so impressed that she gave him a gold star and then bragged about him to all of the other nurses! :) He's got a ways to go before he's eating everything by mouth, but he's doing really well so far!
Breastfeeding is a bit complicated however. I have to take him out of the isolette, unhook all of his monitors, weigh him, hook the monitors back up, feed him, unhook all of the monitors again, weigh him again, hook all the monitors back up and then put him back in bed. That way we can figure out exactly how much food he's getting each time and then adjust his tub feed accordingly. The goal is for him to still get the amount of food, just take more of it by mouth.
This morning I was changing a dirty diaper and, well, someone wasn't quite finished filling it. There was a bit of an explosion and we had quite the mess all over me and the inside of the isolette. (Somehow the cute outfit he was wearing managed to stay completely clean. I'm not sure how that happened...) Three diapers later, I finally had a clean diaper on him and started cleaning up the rest of the mess. The nurse looked at it and decided that it was just easier to put him in a bassinet, since he was just about ready for one anyway. So, Gabriel is now sleeping in an open crib! Not only is that one more step closer to being able to come home, but it is so much easier to get him in and out of it. Taking care of him is going to be a much easier process, rather than having to pull him out while being careful to not to smack his head on the roof or trying to swaddle him while sticking your arm through a hole in the side.
On a completely different note, when I was in 4th grade, we learned all about the Iditarod. We picked our mushers to track through the race that year and ever since then, I've thought that it would be fun to watch the beginning of the Iditarod. Due to geography, however, it's never happened. When I came up here with Gabe, I was all excited that I would actually get to watch the start of the race...until I realized that it's the weekend that I'm going home for Bella's birthday. The one year that I actually could see it, I can't. Well, part of Fur Rondy is a dogsled race through the streets of Anchorage, so today I actually got to see a dogsled race. I have no idea who I was watching or who won, but at least I got to see dog teams running through the streets! One more thing that I can check off of my Anchorage checklist!
There are a few things that I want to see (or experience) while I'm here:
1. Moose
2. Earthquake (to be fair, I only added that one after the earthquake...)
3. Dogsledding
4. Snow
5. Northern lights
I've done the first three. I'm not holding out a lot of hope that I'll be able to see the last two. The had to bring in a bunch of snow for the dogs to run on...
I spent the night at the hospital with Gabe last night. There's a pull out bed in his room, so I was able to actually spend an entire night with my baby! That said, it is rather strange to have to do a 15 second surgical scrub every time you get up to use the bathroom... I also had to do a two minute scrub in the middle of the night just because it had been six hours since my last two minute scrub. That's one way to make sure that you're good and awake at 4am...
Anyway, it was good to be at the hospital all night because it meant that we had multiple opportunities to work on breastfeeding. Since he's so small (34 weeks yesterday), he doesn't wake up ready to breastfeed every single time quite yet, which makes it complicated when I'm not at the hospital all of the time. But we decided to give it a try last night and he took 10ml on his first try! The nurse was so impressed that she gave him a gold star and then bragged about him to all of the other nurses! :) He's got a ways to go before he's eating everything by mouth, but he's doing really well so far!
Breastfeeding is a bit complicated however. I have to take him out of the isolette, unhook all of his monitors, weigh him, hook the monitors back up, feed him, unhook all of the monitors again, weigh him again, hook all the monitors back up and then put him back in bed. That way we can figure out exactly how much food he's getting each time and then adjust his tub feed accordingly. The goal is for him to still get the amount of food, just take more of it by mouth.
This morning I was changing a dirty diaper and, well, someone wasn't quite finished filling it. There was a bit of an explosion and we had quite the mess all over me and the inside of the isolette. (Somehow the cute outfit he was wearing managed to stay completely clean. I'm not sure how that happened...) Three diapers later, I finally had a clean diaper on him and started cleaning up the rest of the mess. The nurse looked at it and decided that it was just easier to put him in a bassinet, since he was just about ready for one anyway. So, Gabriel is now sleeping in an open crib! Not only is that one more step closer to being able to come home, but it is so much easier to get him in and out of it. Taking care of him is going to be a much easier process, rather than having to pull him out while being careful to not to smack his head on the roof or trying to swaddle him while sticking your arm through a hole in the side.
On a completely different note, when I was in 4th grade, we learned all about the Iditarod. We picked our mushers to track through the race that year and ever since then, I've thought that it would be fun to watch the beginning of the Iditarod. Due to geography, however, it's never happened. When I came up here with Gabe, I was all excited that I would actually get to watch the start of the race...until I realized that it's the weekend that I'm going home for Bella's birthday. The one year that I actually could see it, I can't. Well, part of Fur Rondy is a dogsled race through the streets of Anchorage, so today I actually got to see a dogsled race. I have no idea who I was watching or who won, but at least I got to see dog teams running through the streets! One more thing that I can check off of my Anchorage checklist!
There are a few things that I want to see (or experience) while I'm here:
1. Moose
2. Earthquake (to be fair, I only added that one after the earthquake...)
3. Dogsledding
4. Snow
5. Northern lights
I've done the first three. I'm not holding out a lot of hope that I'll be able to see the last two. The had to bring in a bunch of snow for the dogs to run on...
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