Saturday 9 February 2013

Slow progress

It's been another exciting week at the NICU!  Or maybe it's been several days of grinding drudgery as we finally get cheesed off that our baby remains in the hospital.  Anyway, Peter has made good progress, and we're in the in-betweeny stage where they lift the incubator lid, then they put it down, then he puts on weight, then loses some, until everything clicks at once.

The big news is the removal of his feeding tube!  We can finally see all of his face and he's a very handsome boy, but then anyone who knows his father could have predicted that.  He's up to 60ml a feed - huge, given we started on 2ml - but troughing all that down wears him out, so it's harder for him to maintain his temperature, so the incubator lid comes down, etc. etc.  He passed his hearing test today, although I have no idea how they determine that (play him some Britney Spears and see if he cries?)

Pete is now in the "boring baby" section, which we can't complain about.  And we got to see his brain!  They do an ultrasound to check for problems, of which (thankfully again) there were none.  "So it looks like he's going to be artistic rather than an engineer," I joked as I intently studied the images.  "No, it doesn't work like that," replied the head doctor without the slightest smile.  I think he's clocked that I did an arts degree.


The top comes off!



This is all too hard!


But later, a cheeky smile and a wink.


Look - no feeding tube!  For now, at least.


Mother and child.


Keep growing, handsome kid!