February 26, 2009

Happy Birthday Cousin Elizabeth!

Cohen had a really mellow day. He slept for most the day, and even through the nurse having to completely strip his incubator because he overfilled his diaper :) The nurse had me wait to do his 9am cares until he woke up, so by 11am the diaper was over its capacity for pee. The hold on cares (diaper, temp, and probe change) is due to the fact that Cohen’s sole job right now is to sleep and expend the least amount of calories on anything else but growing. So if he is not awake at 9, 12,3, 6, am/pm, then that care is held off until the next care time or until he wakes up. He won’t go more than two care times without care. Feeds continue whether or not Cohen is awake. Hooking up his gavage tube does not disturb him and he needs his calories.

Cohen continues to reflux, and is now actually spitting up some of his residual. The Doctor has increased the dose of his reflux meds, so hopefully this will help out. We are on a routine to up his oxygen about 45 min prior to feeds. Instead of having him work through episodes of de-satting prior to feeds, the increase in oxygen will hopefully make his feeds go much more smoothly.

At one point today both Cohen and his roommate were having episodes of A&B’s…together. They both had the same nurse and she had to stand in the middle of the room and wait and see which baby needed help. Luckily both babies are on caffeine so they were able to pull themselves out it. I was right there to help with Cohen if needed, but it was still rather interesting to see how a nurse would choose one baby over another. (And now I know why they don’t like to have the same nurse to one room of babies!)

Papa Doug and Mema Lodi arrived home from Hawaii/Portland today and stopped by for a visit. It was so nice to see them and for them to see how much Cohen has changed in the last 2 weeks! A whole 7 oz makes such a difference on a little baby, both Doug and Lodi thought he looked bigger and much more like a baby. Papa Doug was able to hold Cohen, but next time its Mema Lodi’s turn. It was news to me, but apparently Cohen is doing so well with his holding times that he can have more than 1 per day! Now if only I could just snuggle him all day long….