Forget the Step Forward

Apparently we are proceeding straight to the two steps back. This is like when you land on Go To Jail in monopoly except much less fun.

They still have no clue why he isn't breathing on his own yet, it may be reflux or something. He is desatting (drifting in and out of low O2 levels) for about an hour after every feeding. Soo they are going to intubate him or however you spell that. Basically they have decided to stick a tube down his nose and into his tummy and leave it there and pour some food down it once every 2 hours. Apparently this will aggrevate him less because the tube going up and down his throat makes him spit up (it's called a gag reflex people, I know he is a baby but he is a person too, if you stick a tube down his throat yeah he might not like it. duh). So yeah they are going to be handling him less. Once every 4 hours they will change his diaper and take his temperature. They will feed him less food, every 2 hours through the tube.

This may help or it may make things worse. If he still desats after every time they put food in his tube, and continues to desat for an hour like he has been then he will be desatting for an entire hour every second hour. Which will be much more stressful. On the other hand if he's been desatting because his tummy is too full after each feeding then having a smaller feeding every 2 hours will likely solve the problem. Either way he now has yet another tube coming out of his tiny little body. I don't know what to think of it. Hopefully this will help him and not make things worse because I don't want them to have done this to him for nothing, or to make it worse.

As a result of this, obviously I won't be breast/bottle feeding him any time soon. They said he's too young for that and it will come in time. Insert sigh here. He is growing well. I guess there is that. But he likely won't be home for quite a while. Today we brought in his lullaby cd. The one I used to fall asleep to while I was pregnant. It was nice to have them play it for him, it kind of distracts you from all the beeping for a little while.

Oh today I didn't cry. There's a plus. Or at least I haven't cried yet I should say, the day is nowhere near over, I'll probably find a way to fit it in later. We had a nice nurse today, we kind of unloaded on her yesterday, told her all about the mean one the other night, and this nurse was very reassuring about it. She told me not to feel like he wasn't my baby etc. Tried to make me feel better about everything. Offered to let me try breastfeeding him (last night before they decided to intubate him) I wanted to, but I declined because I was afraid to touch him and I told her this. She told me not to be afraid and that I needed the cuddles. I let C hold him for the gavage feeding instead. Anyway she was there today and she was nice. I let C hold him again. I just don't feel up to it. I want to really badly, but I can't stand it, sitting there watching his sats go down to the 70s and thinking I must be doing something wrong because he can't get enough oxygen in his blood.

I really truly am hating this. Waking up each day is like returning to a nightmare that I can't escape from. I keep wondering does it ever get better? Does he ever come home?

Today I almost told C to hand Sky baby to "mommy" to put him in the crib. I almost said it without thinking. Can you guess who I was referring to? It wasn't me, it was the nurse. Why do I feel this way? I don't know. I'm a visitor to my own baby, I'm not the one who gets to reposition him in his crib and decide what time he is going to feed or go back down to bed. The nurse does all this. So yes I guess I don't feel very much like he belongs to me. I almost bit my tongue off as I was about to say it outloud. Yes I understand how important it is that he get all the care he needs right now. And I guess I am not the person to do any of this for him. I just have to accept that, and I am trying so hard but I just can't. If I didn't want to be the one to take care of him I never would have had him. I'm ready to be his mom. I want to be his mom.

Ok there we go. Cried today? Check. Lovely.