Five weeks 1 day old

So the doctors rounded early. As in 8 am early. I'm pushing myself to get up earlier, but that is just too early. Thankfully Andrew was able to attend and catch me up.

Me? Yeah, I slept through rounds while sucking down my breakfast.

Evan's main focus is going to be in gaining weight. He lost a little over the weekend. Not enough to really make any sort of difference though. I'm going to do my part by eating lots of Halloween candy. Evan's nutrition team is going to make sure he's doing his part by adding extra calories to his breast milk again. As of this evening, Evan is at 21 mL of breast milk with 22 calories. I believe they were talking about increasing his calories to 24 tomorrow.

Evan's head IV needed to come out today as it was no longer needed. Unfortunately with being on his head, it was a bit more painful to remove. Despite the nurse's best efforts to use the goo-gone pads, I think the tape still pulled some hair out. Evan was very vocal about his displeasure. As soon as the tape was off, he calmed down and gave me some bubbles. We got him all cleaned up with a little sponge bath. I lotioned him up (I'm learning just how durable he is even as little as he is) while the nurse tried out a mohawk hairdo. His hair needs to grow a little more in order to have fun hairstyles. Due to all the stimulation from the morning, I didn't get to snuggle with Evan. I didn't ask because I could tell he was really tired from his time at the spa. I knew that the snuggling would have been more for me than for him.

Wee! Less respiratory support!

When we arrived to Evan's bedside tonight, we realized that they had made a change on the ventilator settings. He's not requiring as much support, so they lowered the pressure. This is exciting and possibly means that he'll be on the high flow cannula by the end of the week. He was on the high flow up until Thursday last week when he started having his spells.

Knock on wood, Evan only had one spell (brady) today. It was at shift change just like a few others have been. I think he's like me in the fact that he doesn't like the unknown and freaks out when he's due for a new nurse.

Evan should have his first eye test this week (most likely on Thursday). Premature babies are susceptible to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). ROP is when the blood vessels in the eyes don't grow properly. There may be damage (that is correctable). Due to my excellent eavesdropping skills (what? At least I'm honest!), I know that he'll have his eyes dilated and that the nurses hate trying to give the drops to the babies.

Oh were you trying to leave?
Cuz I want to be wide awake right now so I can watch you walk out the door!

(No matter how much his mouth is cleaned up, he manages to bubble and make crusties instantly! Guess babies do that at any age!)