August 30

We had a great day today. Will nippled 3 feedings completely, then the last one this evening he needed the last 10 CC gavaged so that's great progress. Our power went out this morning so I went to my father's house to pump then went to the hospital early. The care conference went well, I got more information on his discharge and what will happen after he comes home. We both have to room in with Will for a night before he can come home, bu thopefully we'll be able to organize that for a weekend so it doesn't interfere with Justin's work schedule. I asked if we could room in before the night before he goes home to get that checked off for Justin, then I could return the night before discharge alone, and they said we may end up getting discharged slightly earlier to accomodate us both staying over on the weekend since a couple extra days probably won't have added benefit. We also need to bring in his carseat to make sure it works for him. He may end up coming home on oxygen and/or an apnea monitor, both of which would require some minor training for me. The oxygen works differently from what he has now, now we can adjust flow rate and % (so he can have room air all the way up to pure oxygen blowing hard or barely running), at home he'd have 100% oxygen and we'd only be able to adjust the flow rate. He's going to need follow up appointments every 2 weeks with the opthamologist (eye doctor) for his ROP until it is gone, injections every month to protect against RSV infection (a common virus that can be very dangerous to babies especially preemies) and he'll need special follow-ups to check developmental progress and weight gain. I'll be provided with a small stash of nipples to fit the bottles milk is stored in and formula to enrich hisbreastmilk with. I plan to ask to speak to a lactation specialist again tomorrow to ask about a device called a supplemental nursing system or SNS, which would provide supplement while breastfeeding using an additional tube, which should help our nursing attempts. Right now he works hard at nursing to get milk, but doesn't have the physical strength to get a full feed that way yet and is often tired out by the attempt enough that it's hard for him to take the rest of the feed by bottle after, using something like that would solve that problem. So hopefully they'll be able to help me get set up with something like that. Not much else to report today, we got a lot of information so I can't cover everything but that's the important part.