Emmett reached an exciting milestone today: he is now officially double his birthweight, at 3 lbs 12 oz. He had another pretty good day today. Still a few more events than I would like, but nothing like he was a few days ago. The team is happy enough that they want to turn him down to 2 liters of oxygen flow tomorrow. It makes me nervous, but they think he can handle it.
There was also some talk today about moving him to a crib soon, which is huge. They have turned down the temperature in his incubator and have been swaddling him in a blanket. This was mostly to keep him from pulling out his feeding tube, but it’s good to see he is getting better at regulating his temperature.
Today was my first day working from the hospital and it went well. It made the day go by faster and I was actually pretty productive, so I’m feeling good about my decision to go back and save my leave for when E comes home. I still have every reason to believe that will be sometime mid-August, but it’s crazy to see how much progress E is making and how the team is plowing ahead with next steps. It’s weird – I’m actually kind of scared of the progress. For one, I’m afraid of getting too comfortable again. I think what made the last week’s setback so hard was the fact that he had been doing so well the week before. But two, I’m honestly afraid to take him home. The NICU can keep even a very sick baby alive. Can I? I remember when T was a newborn I would just stare at him while he slept, terrified he would stop breathing. And he was healthy. With E’s prematurity and the CLD, I’m going to be a basket case. I may need more weaning from the monitors than E does. I kind of want to get one of those Owlet monitors, but D thinks I’ll drive myself even more crazy.
I’m home tonight and did some cleaning and organizing of the nursery this evening. I unpacked T’s old newborn clothes and hung them in E’s closet. Seeing those little clothes (which look huge, compared to Emmett’s size) brought back a ton of memories. As scared as I am to bring him home, it’s starting to feel more real and I’m also getting excited.
Keeping up with the Hoffmans 