This week was a fairly quiet one on the Nico front, bar one episode... the most important thing of the week is that we have definately mastered feeding. As long as he is not asleep or too agitated (by either his hernia or reflux... who knows), we have no problem getting him to feed at all. He is so content feeding, I still get a natural high just watching him and his monitors.
He is spending so much more time awake now. It is a bit of a double edged sword. I love that he is so awake and alert... he really studies your face and this surroundings. He loves to look at the activty bar stretched across his cot with its bright coloured toys, I can't wait until he actually purposefully reaches for them but I have no memory at what age this usually happens. I made a little video of him to share on Facebook. My parents haven't seen him since he was about 7 weeks old so it made their day to see him looking and acting like such a regular little newborn, just like he would have been this month had he not been born early... minus the prongs.
(Skip this paragraph if easily upset. I want this to remain in my head so have described it as vividly as possible from my POV)
On Friday... yes the same day as last week... he had another "dusky episode" in my arms. I had taken him out of his cot.. unfortunately when he was fast asleep (I only had an hour there as I had Brooklyn with me) His monitor was showing a "?" where it usually displays his saturations. This happens fairly often if it is calibrating or can't get a good trace so I just watched him. He was pretty upset, and I felt so bad for disturbing him. Then he stopped crying, Usually mothers breathe a sigh of relief but not me. He was grey. I am not a morbid person, and I hate to give horrible mental pictures but unfortunately the colour dragged my mind back 10 years to when I lost my grandfather and hadn't thought of it or seen it since. It was really eerie. Worse than the week before.. he was a purply blue then. This was just grey. He didn't go entirely motionless and he was still flicking glances at me albeit blankly.
Surprisingly, I didn't crack this time. I held him as two nurses prepared the Neopuff for resuss. They took him from me, put him in his cot, took off his prongs, pulled off his tapes and removed his feeding tube. He was given manual puffs of 100% oxygen about 15 times in the space of 1 minute and this pulled him back up. He was pushing on the nurses hand to get it off him. She had to hold it there giving the oxygen - but no breaths - for a further 10 minutes while they cut new tapes for his prongs and retubed him. Maybe if Brooklyn hadn't have been there, I would have freaked out more again but there is that invisible force that makes you a stronger person when your child is around. Like I don't scream at the sight of a spider if she is around. I avoid the room I saw it in, but I don't scream.
One great thing that happened this week though: Nico reached 3 kgs!! It took me by surprise as he was putting on about 150 grams every 2 days. Sometimes 180 grams. He is so much like a newborn now, it amazes me. I know it sounds logical... he was always going to grow and he WAS due 3 weeks ago but it still amazes me. I keep telling people how he is "like a real baby" and then I laugh at my stupidity... he isn't LIKE a real baby, he just IS one!
I think we're all guilty of saying he looks like a 'real' baby!
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