I got very very little sleep last night, maybe 2-3 hrs or so. I'm still having a lot of pain, which makes it difficult to sleep. And now I'm pumping every 3 hrs, even at night. Add in an overdose of fear and worry and you've got a recipe for sleep deprivation.
The lactation ladies came by again to see me this morning. We are now getting small amounts of colostrum, which we freeze and take upstairs to NICU. They will mix it in with the donated milk he is getting. I have rented a hospital-grade breast pump, so I can keep up my dairy farm routine at home.
Jonah is having a hard day. They had lowered the pressure on his CPAP overnight, from 7 Liters down to 6. Today he's had lots of retraction (where his chest caves in when he breathes), so they've increased it back up to 7 Liters.
He's also having a hard time digesting the 3 cc's of breast milk. He's having lots of "residuals", which is what they call the green icky stuff that comes up into the stomach and indicates that his little intestines are not digesting properly. So the nurses have been forced to hold (or skip) several of his feedings today. He is still getting 100% of his nutrition through the IV, so it's not like he's starving. It makes sense that his body does not know how to digest food, given that he's still supposed to be getting his nutrients from a placenta and umbilical cord right now.
He remains under the phototherapy lights, and his bruising has gotten a tiny bit lighter today.
My sister, parents, and Gracie came up to the hospital to visit me this morning. I don't think anyone really knew how to react when they saw Jonah laying there in his isolette. Gracie was just bubbling with excitement ... she talked about how cute he looked and how he was the teeniest baby she'd ever seen in her whole entire life. She was begging to hold him, of course, and doesn't seem to really get why no one is allowed to hold or cuddle him yet.
In other news, little Jonah finally got a middle name. It happened about 3 minutes before discharge, when the nurse was practically standing there staring at us waiting on the birth certificate. We couldn't put it off any longer. Since James agreed to the first name I had picked, I let him have full rights to the middle name. He picked Ryan. I was less than excited about it. But I bit my tongue, wrote it down, handed the birth certificate to our nurse, then got in the wheelchair and came home.
I was discharged around 5:00. Leaving the hospital without Jonah was hard. James was very emotional. I had to remind him (and myself) that this was different than the last time we left the hospital empty-handed, after Isaac was born. On the ride home we talked about how fortunate we were to be at Northside and to have my amazing team of doctors. Now Jonah has his own amazing team of doctors. This could be so much worse. I really feel like we've been lucky, as strange as that probably sounds.
We made a quick stop by Babies R Us on the way home for breastfeeding (pump) supplies. We were so confused because the time changed last night, so at first we thought they were closed. But just as we exited on Chapel Hill Road, James realized that the clock in the car was really an hour ahead now, so we had exactly 20 minutes to shop. Small victories.
When we got home, we were surprised by an impromptu "welcome home" party planned and executed by Gracie. (Tammy and Laura were home with her, they might've helped a little). We had Hello Kitty party hats, "It's a Boy!" balloons, and sparkly purple streamers. My friend Sherry had made a delicious lasagna dinner for us. It felt wonderful to come home to a hot homecooked meal. I had to exit the party a little early because my pain had really kicked back up again, but I loved it nonetheless.
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