a little bit of "Catch-ing" up

There are so many puns to be made about Catcher's name, i admit it's kinda fun :)

Yesterday Catcher really started to turn a corner, in a good direction. Last i blogged, he was on a high flow oxygen, at 2 liters, and about 30% oxygen. Room air is 21%, so he was getting weaned closer and closer. Well yesterday he was doing so amazingly well that they decided to bring down the flow to 1 liter, and since he tolerated that so well they were able to switch him to a low flow nasal canula instead of the high flow. They upped his feedings yesterday too, they are still feeding him by tube because he is still on oxygen and they don't want to push him too hard and have him go backwards from working too hard and getting exhausted. I really appreciate that, because a lot of times just when you think your baby is doing better and they start pushing them too fast off of oxygen or onto bottle feedings and they're just not ready, then their poor little body gets so tired from working so hard that they end up back on more oxygen than before just to get a break. These nurses have been really careful not to do that...THANK YOU! It was exciting to see so much progress yesterday and most of it was while i was there holding him the whole time, he was doing just great.

Today got even better!!! When Adam and i went in to visit Catcher today he was on the low flow nasal canula and at room mix air! 21%!!!! Go Catcher! He was tolerating it so well that they were slowly going to turn down the flow until hopefully by tomorrow he can be off of it and in an open crib! Wow what a big step that would be! They upped his feedings again today to 45mls and he is tolerating them perfectly, no residuals left over between feedings and NO spit up at all, which is just awesome! His feedings are still thru a tube and today they said they wanted to start feeding him with a bottle or breastfeeding. Now even thru a bottle all he would get is the milk i've been pumping for him anyway, and the good thing about a bottle is they can see exactly how much food the baby eats, so i was fine if they wanted to start him with that. Well the nurse asked if i wanted to try to breastfeed him for his first real feeding instead. I said yes of course, but secretly didn't think he'd do very well, i've never seen him terribly anxious to suck on anything, not even the binky very much, but i figured why not try it. To my surprise he actually did much better than i expected, he didn't get much, but they didn't let him go for very long because he still has the oxygen on, they didn't want to push him too hard. He still got some (they use a syringe to suck everything out thru the tube down in the stomach to see how much more was in it than there was before feeding, then put it back in their stomach - this is how they check to make sure the baby is digesting between feedings) it was more than i expected, it was no where near a full feeding, but for how little he is and for his first time, i was quite impressed, as was the nurse. She put the rest of the feeding thru his tube, but they'll be starting him with a bottle soon and once he starts to get the hang of that they'll be able to take the tube out from his stomach and that will help him latch on better too.

The nurses asked how long his sisters were in the NICU for when they were born, and both Elaine and Katie were there for 9 days, the nurses are just sure Catcher is already in competition with his sisters and trying to show them up and be out in the same amount of time. I'm not pushing it, i figure i won't worry unless he's in there for more than 2 weeks since his birth. Tomorrow will only be one week, he's doing really well, but i want to be sure he's going to do well at home so i'm content to let him take his time to really get all the help he needs. I'm feeling more relaxed about his NICU stay than i did with Elaine and Katie, partially i think because he is so much closer, i don't have to drive all the way to Stockton just to visit like i did with Katie. Having Catcher right here in Modesto is fabulous. And having been thru this all before, i know it won't last forever, and in fact it will seem so short once it's done, that i'll wonder why i ever stressed about it.

All in all it has been a great couple of days for our little Catcher. He has a little stuffed hippo that we named Mitt, "Catcher's Mitt," the nurses all thought that was so cute, they keep Mitt cuddle in the crib right next to Catcher, it's like a little piece of us is close to him. We're going to have to bake lots of cookies and make a great big thank you card for these nurses when this is all over, they have been amazing!!