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Journal Key:

Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple | Evelyn = Black

2/25/10 (Thursday)

What was predicted to be a huge snowstorm was starting this morning, but things didn't seem too bad yet. Local schools hadn't closed, so we went on with our day very much as usual. The snow was helpful in getting Cara out the door, because she decided to go help Daddy clean off the car!

Snow was falling but the roads were clear when Steve and I drove down to the hospital. We were very glad we did! Owen woke up early for his feeding and was clearly a very hungry boy. He nursed and then finished his bottle for Steve, and we hear he'd been finishing a lot of bottles. His heart rate stayed where it ought to. When we said goodbye to the nurse, she explained that she'd be off for a few days coming up. Maybe, she said, he'd be home when she got back! I'm pretty sure it couldn't happen quite that fast, though.

The roads were still clear on our drive home, but we got Cara early anyway. Tonight was a little odd. We ended up all sitting around in the living room in the dark, because Cara had been playing with her glow toy. We were also watching curling. Cara had her fairy dolls out, and we'd been making silhouettes of them on the glow thing. Eventually, they decided to play a really exciting game that consisted of them taking turns jumping onto the empty couch. It was, apparently, a lot of fun.

2/26/10 (Friday)

We checked with Yellow Brick Road this morning, and they seemed to be open. But the snow was coming down hard and we decided to make it a "stay at home day," for all three of us. I went out to shovel snow, and Cara excitedly came out with me. She had lots of fun by herself, but unfortunately I had to do some shoveling instead of get on the sled with her, and eventually Cara got bored of waiting for me and went inside.

I spent a good deal of the rest of the day and into the afternoon painting in Owen's room. My main task at this point is finishing the train, so that's what I was working on. Mommy spent the time mainly cleaning the house and doing other chores. Meanwhile the child watched some TV but also did some playing by herself. She got out a family of Playmobil people and pretended they were camping out. It looked a lot like a picnic, except they all had beds.

We decided to have a special dinner in front of the TV so that Daddy could watch the gold medal women's curling match. Unfortunately the team I was rooting for, Canada, lost--but before that happened, Cara had long lost interest, gotten a bath, brushed her teeth, and gone to bed.

Ev did give the NICU a call today to check on our little guy. The nurse reported that he continues to do well with his bottles, only getting tubed on one feeding overnight. She even said that Owen had glared at her after taking a bottle, so she gave him an extra snack! So things are definitely looking up.

We've had a couple of incidents in the night where Cara needs to go potty but does not go into the bathroom in time. We gathered that part of this was due to the fact that the bathroom is too dark at night, even with a night light, so for quite a while now we have been leaving the bathroom lights on at night. Cara has become convinced that whenever we have forgotten to do this, Daddy is to blame. She has repeatedly spoken to Mommy about making sure that Daddy does not turn out the bathroom lights. Hmph.

2/28/10 (Sunday)

As I think we've mentioned, every night after we floss her teeth Cara dashes to the bathroom and declares that she is the winner. Sometimes, she even quantifies things. Usually, she says something like, "I got five!" and holds up her hand as if she had a handful of, I imagine, medals. Usually, we got zero. The other night, I got two. She claimed to have left them for me. I wonder what they are. Something she picks up on the way? This evening, she got thirty-seven.

For the past two days, Cara and Steve have been home while I've gone down to the hospital. Last night, Cara went and slept over in Middletown. Today, Grandmama and Steve did some painting. Cara, I hear, did a good job of amusing herself. The mess isn't even too bad! I painted a little when I got home, and she came up and helped, helpfully.

We surreptitiously took some video of Owen a few days ago. Of course we showed it to Cara. Yesterday, she said something to the effect of "Now that I've seen Owen in real life . . ."

Owen is apparently very comfortable in the NICU, because he shows no signs of wanting to leave. I don't think he's taken an entire bottle in the last 24 hours. I'm . . . tired. Frustrated. Starting to lose it.

3/1/10 (Monday)

This morning we had a bit of a time convincing Cara to do what she needed to do to get her to preschool. There was some wailing involved. In the car on the way there, I explained to Cara that I would be going back to work tomorrow, so we'd have to get ourselves to preschool even earlier, so that I could get to work on time. Eventually Cara asked me, "Daddy, is there going to be a surprise for me tomorrow when I get home from preschool?" I asked Cara what she meant--she couldn't possibly expect another toy, could she? No, that wasn't what she meant. "Is Owen going to be home from the hospital?"

Sadly, the answer is still "Not yet." We have had a lot of ups and downs with the little guy--it's been like a roller coaster, in fact--and yesterday was a downer. However after the downs, we go up, and we had a very nice surprise when we got to the hospital today. The first thing I noticed, having not gotten to see Owen for a couple of days, was that he is huge! He seemed to have grown considerably in the few days I'd not seen him, especially his face. The nurse who had him today said the same. He is really filling out his clothes now, the same outfits that we used to lose his hands and feet inside.

When we arrived at the NICU, Owen's nurse was out of the room. As soon as she walked in, she said, "I'm going to take his tube out." Ev and I were astounded. After such a bad feeding experience yesterday, it was the last thing we expected to hear. But she said he'd done very well with his bottles overnight, and it was time to try him. So, out came his feeding tube! It's one of the last things that will come off of him before he leaves the hospital. Providing he does not have issues that require putting the tube back in, he is now in the "home stretch," and could potentially be home within the week! The other babies we have seen around us who have had tubes come out have been home in just a few days. However I think in Owen's case the tube removal is more of a test. Other preemies meet a strict set of feeding criteria before they get the tube removed, but I think the idea for Owen was "enough is enough!" So we'll see how he does on this test. Now I really have to figure out how to use that infant car seat again!

I really feel that Owen deserves to get some kind of distinguished service award for the time he has put in at the NICU. Perhaps he could have an incubator dedicated to him--a nice plaque would be in order, I think, or perhaps a decoration like a Purple Heart...Monitor.

Did I mention that I like to call the little guy my "angry duck"? This is because of the fascinating grunting sounds he makes when he is wriggling and stretching away. I would like to know if there is a custom clothing store on the internet that would let me print a onesie that says "Daddy's Little Angry Duck."

Well obviously we are really crossing our fingers now and hoping Owen graduates--that he is done slipping backwards and will make this last leap without his tube.

Our second good surprise of the day was at a visit to the drug store on the way home from the hospital. The March of Dimes provided a one-time-use disposable camera at Owen's bed side, and we took lots of pictures with it, and several weeks ago I dropped it off to be developed. Ev had returned to the drug store a couple of times since then, trying to pick up the prints, to no avail. They had no record of it; was she sure this was the right store? We had pretty much given up hope of getting the photos--I assumed I had somehow filled out the envelope wrong--but we decided to give it one more try today. Lo and behold, after a lot of rustling under the counter, the clerk on duty located our prints! We were very relieved and pleased, perhaps excessively so. It's interesting to look at them, because we took some of them quite a few weeks ago, and they show just how far he has come during his time in the hospital.

This evening we spent getting Owen's room a lot closer to being ready. I plugged away at a few spots of the mural, until I felt it was at that "close enough" stage, and then we moved his furniture and accessories in--Cara was very helpful in this regard. She brought a lot of things up, put a lot of things away. She helpfully followed right behind me as we parents hefted Owen's dresser up the stairs. "I'm following right behind you, Daddy!" she said. "In case you mess up and fall over!"

I do really hope he can make it home soon. It's going to be pretty tough having to go to work and not getting to see him during the week.

3/2/10 (Tuesday)

Today I went back to work, and with the help of Mommy I managed to get there in a reasonable amount of time. It was nice to go back. Also, since Mommy is under the weather now and tired out from all her hospital trips, she took a day off today and got a little rest (but she also did a lot of messing around with Owen's things).

Cara and Mommy went grocery shopping in the early evening. As it happened, I returned home before them and got to give Cara her bath before dinner. Afterwards Evie called the hospital and things sound like they are going very smoothly for our little boy. He is having a test today that I think involves their basically recording his heart monitors for quite a few hours, just to make sure he doesn't have any breathing issues (we think he will pass this test with no problem). He has been taking big, big bottles with no problem. The nurse estimated he could be home as early as Thursday or Friday! I frantically set up the car seat this evening--I had to put the fabric cover on and re-thread the harness--so that Evie can bring it in tomorrow for the all-important Car Seat Challenge. Fortunately the base is very easy to install in her car.

We're still finding a lot of little things that need to be set up so the house will be ready for him, and Evie expressed her desire to wipe down the entire house with a bleach cloth. As for me, I'll be off to work again tomorrow--but we'll be calling into the hospital in the mornings from now on to check and see if it's D-Day.

3/3/10 (Wednesday)

I had some errands to do in the morning, and I got to the hospital a little after eleven. I hauled the car seat and base into the NICU. Owen was sleeping. The audiologist came in to retest his hearing, since he'd failed one of the four parts of the original test. When she'd finished, she and the doctor explained that he'd still failed that one part but that it was probably just due to fluid build-up in his ear; the part he'd passed was the more important part, and this was nothing to be concerned about. The doctor said that he'd also done fine on his pneumogram, which had been done the day before. For twelve hours they'd recorded and assessed the data from his monitors to check for apnea. In fact, said the doctor, there was no more reason to keep him. We could take him home whenever we were ready, tomorrow, or maybe today. I opted for today!

It was, therefore, a busy day. I got in touch with the pediatrician and gave them the NICU information and made an appointment, and I gave the NICU the pediatrician's information. I dealt with some billing issues. I talked to someone from lactation. I fed Owen. Owen started his car seat challenge--Owen seems so big to us, now, that Steve had been concerned that the lowest slots for the straps might be too small for him. They weren't; the nurse and I had to figure out how to tighten them. I pumped. Owen was sitting in his car seat, wide awake, watching all of the nurses.

Steve and I headed home at the same time, from different directions. I did use a clorox wipe on the door knobs, light switches, and stair railings. Steve picked up Cara and gave her a bath. I pumped. We all got back on the road. Cara wanted us to be quiet because Deesta was sleeping in the back seat. I explained that Owen would not need us to be quiet. On the way we did stop for dinner at the Olive Garden that we used to go to when we were in college. We figured there wasn't much chance of eating after we got Owen!

At the hospital, I headed up first to get things started. Cara and Steve parked the car and came up to wait outside the NICU. Wonderfully, Owen's nurse was Ann, who hadn't had him since he was in Room One. She's a great nurse and also a lactation consultant, and she's just a calm and wonderful person. She was great when I was hysterical on Sunday. She and the doctor helped me pack up all the things to take home. I'd taken a couple of bags earlier, but there was more. They sent us with everything that had been at Owen's station, beside the linen. We have, for instance, three of those squeezy bulbs to get gunk out of his nose. They couldn't use those for any other baby, even though most of the things were still in their sterile wrappers. Ann turned off the monitor, and she opened up Owen's outfit and took off the three leads stuck to his chest. She took off the little sensor that made his foot glow. She changed him one last time, and then she put him into his car seat, making sure that I saw how to cushion and support him. I had a couple of things to sign, and then we all went out the door.

Cara was a little shy, partly because Ann and the doctor were there. Her response to Owen, overall, was that he's cute. Of course, she's right. Ann rode down on the elevator with us (that's policy), and then we said goodbye. In the car Cara and Owen sat in the back together. He spent his time sleeping, though he did some stretching and squeaking. She spent her time exploring; she peered at him and even touched him a little bit, just with her fingertips.

We all got home around seven. It was . . . well, we had a new baby! Things were disorganized and exciting.

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