NICU day 81

Well, we didn’t turn the corner on feeding today like I’d hoped. He was pretty sleepy for most of his feeds today so they just fed him through a feeding tube for most of them, though he did take 12 ml from me early this morning, and 35 ml via bottle this evening. The nurse today was talking about the possibility of putting him back on oxygen, which would be really disappointing. He seemed to me he was doing really well with his breathing, but the nurse said he may be working so hard to breathe that he has no energy or stamina to eat. I hate the idea of putting him back on oxygen. I know it’s normal to take steps forward and backward during this process, but that would be a huge step backwards, and would mean we’re even farther from being discharged than I thought. They weren’t going to make any changes today, but would discuss more tomorrow. I just keep hoping he figures it out one of these days.

Weight was up 40 grams tonight, bringing him to 6 lbs 15 oz. Now that he’s the size of a full-term newborn I’m less interested in the weight gain, and more in his feed volume. It’ll be nice to stop obsessing about numbers at some point.