Mini Milestones

Beginning of January, apart from Nico's "episodes", also brought with it some fabulous, tangible progress, or at least token signs interpreted as progress.

• He reached 1.5kg
• He got to wear clothes
• He moved to cot
• He had his first bath

Until 4 months ago, I never would have thought dressing my baby would have been called a milestone. Surely it is a given: have baby, dress baby. Obviously not. I walked into the Bay and saw an open cot squeezed in between Nico and his neighbour ... I thought "Hmm.. obvioulsy tight for space!" which had I thought about it, would have realised was a ridiculous assumption. A NICU is not somewhere you can just squeeze in extra beds. Each station has so much built in equipment, if it was to be full, new babies have to get moved to another hospital. The open cot was for Nico!

I was so excited. Not only would this make touching him and seeing him so much easier, I also knew it meant CLOTHES!! He was in hospital clothes the first day since no one had told me he was moving, but the next day I couldn't wait to fill his litte drawers with his tiny clothes. I couldn't believe he almost fitted shop bought clothes! 00000 were almost the right length although they swam around his middle.

About 4 or 5 days later, I was in for my second surprise "Are we going to bath him today with his weigh?" the nurse asked me. I grinned and told her he had not had a bath before... I thnk she was almost going to say "Well we won't do one, maybe there is a reason" but the ecstatic look on my face must have persuaded her otherwise. I was too scared to actually hold him in the bath so two nurses did that part, and I washed him. Again, who knew this would be a milestone? He did so well...he didn't have any big desat's, he didn't require any higher oxygen and when we put him back in bed, apart from a bit of a grump as I dried him off... he was a happy lil man.

The next bath, 2 days later, I held him and washed him while the nurse held his prings in... and the 3rd bath, I did all on my own. Finally I felt like a parent! Saying that sounds like I hadn't yet bonded with Nico, but that would be far fromthe truth, I had bonded, but felt entirely useless and like a bystander in my baby's life. I'd gotten to change nappies and check temperatures regularly and give him cuddles of course, but nothing had felt quite as "he's really my baby and he WILL come home with us!" as that moment.