Bringing Baby Home

Well, you're gonna have to expect that these posts may end pretty abruptly - no fault of my own, I assure you :) Occupational hazard now, I'm afraid...hehehe. Throw up and diaper changes trump blog every time. Kind of a rock, paper, scissors kinda thing. Anyhow, getting back to business.

So, we were finally allowed to go home on Tuesday with the condition that we'd come back on Wednesday for a repeat jaundice test (another one!). Well, who knew what an ordeal that was going to be! We were told on Tuesday by our nurse to go to the 4th floor where there was a lab and have the test done there. So, foolish us, we went to the 4th floor and had the test done at the lab. The nurse who did the test told us that they were not able to release the results to us personally and that they'd only be able to release the results to the ordering doctor - who was back on the 2nd floor (where we'd been staying since Friday). She suggested that we go back to the 2nd floor where we'd be able to ask the nurses on staff to call up and ask for the results. So, that's what we did. We went back down to the 2nd floor and say Sandi - who was fantastic, btw!! Best nurse we had - her and Judy. And thank God for them cuz I'm sure we'd have still been there trying to figure out what went wrong. And, apparently - everything did. Sandi told us to go wait in the lounge and she'd check on the results for us in an hour (that's how long the test takes) so off to the lounge we went. After about an hour, Sandi started inquiring how our test was doing. Man, what a feat that was going to be. I could hear her from the lounge asking the girl at the desk all sorts of questions and at one point she stopped bothering to come in and just hollered questions at me from around the corner :) Apparently, we were suppose to have gone to the 3rd floor clinic - not the 4th floor lab as we had been instructed. So, the 3rd floor lab now had our results, and although they were fine, Sandi finally figures out that we aren't able to go home (even knowing that the results are fine) until we've gone up to the 3rd floor to meet with the doctor so HE can tell us the results are fine. So, we go up to the 3rd floor and find the clinic (they need better signage, btw. We ended up in some cancer area where all the nurses were oohing and aahing over Marcus - not that that's a bad thing.....but I just want to go home!!! Have a mentioned that yet??) :) So, we met with the doctor (who took his sweet time, I may add) and we were allowed to go back home. That's right. Allowed to go back home. I had no idea that if Marcus had of failed the test that he would have been admitted back in!! Good thing I didn't know that before the test - I'd have been a lot more worried! Leaving him there......I DON'T THINK SO!!!!

So, back home we go - and for good this time. Well, until his first Doctor's appointment on Friday which went well. Except for his weight. Since the little guy had been on I.V.'s and so forth until Sunday and me starting to breastfeed late cuz of him being in NICU, his weight wasn't what it should have been. He was born 5lbs 13ozs and when we weighed him on the following Friday at the Doctor's he weighed in at 5lbs 1oz. So, the Dr. suggested that we supplement with formula to try and get his weight up. Fine - so, now we start stuffing him with formula. People tell you not to wake a sleeping baby but when your kid loosing an entire pound in a week - trust me. You start waking on schedule to stuff his little gullet. Felt like we were trying to make fois gras. Have you seen them feed those ducks??? :P So, stuff, stuff. You think loosing a pound a week is a lot....how about gaining one in a week? What the hell is in that stuff? Mind you, Mike was cramming a bottle into him every time I turned around. :) But he did it. Marcus weighed in at 5lbs 14ozs when we went back to the Dr.'s the following Friday. :) Yeah!!! No more scheduled feedings!!! We also reintroduced the boob. :) There's better stuff in breastmilk and I prefer him drinking that over whatever in god's name is in formula. Not that I'm against formula - if you gotta do it, you gotta do it. But if I can do the boob, then I'm gonna try. So, as of today, he's back on 100% breastmilk and off of the formula. (Thanks for the help, Carol!) Which is nice. Don't have to wait for anything to warm up, don't have to sterilize bottles, don't have a bunch of pots and bottles sitting around all over the counter....it's nice all around.

So, inquiring minds wanted to know what he weighs now (5 weeks old now!) and do you know he's over 8lbs!!! I was shocked.....I'm not sure why....I guess a pound a week is normal(now that he's back to gaining and making up for lost time!) Still, considering if the pregnancy had of gone full term, he'd only be a week old now. Still somehow shocking. He's plumping up nicely.