July 15

Not very fond of the nurse Will has had the last couple days. She was assigned to 3 babies (most have 2, after his big scare Will was an only charge for a while) and seems too busy to take the best care of him, she's adequate but I wouldn't say good. She did start listening when I told her how he likes to be positioned and which diapers work for him today, yesterday she disregarded what I said when I phrased it as a gentle suggestion, today I started being more assertive. She had him on his back all day yesterday and all day again today (he's supposed to be repositioned several times throughout the day) though she did make one feeble attempt to put him on his side. His back is his least favorite position, he doesn't sleep or breathe as well so most of the nurses keep him that way for the minimum time they can and then put him back onto his side or tummy.

His oxygen had to be increased last night so I didn't expect them to remove the ventilator today, I called to check this morning and learned that so we took our time getting ready to go and were surprised to recieve a call from the doc right after we left the house saying they were removing it! It was done by the time we got there (almost an hour later) and he was back on CPAP. He doesn't like the hat and ties for the CPAP tube so he kept making sour faces and trying to grab it. He did very well all day, oxygen saturation stayed high, no major apnea spells, good coloring and resting peacefully. Hopefully he'll be strong enough this time to keep it up! He was blowing lots of spit bubbles which the doc thought is good, before he was getting crusty gunk on his lips from dried saliva and now his moisture content is better. We also saw the first evidence of developing sucking reflex, when the nurse was suctioning out his mouth to get rid of the mad squirrel foamy bubbles he grabbed on and made a weak but obvious attempt at sucking on the vacuum thing! He also had a lot of interest in his mouth today, sticking his tongue out and putting his hands up there, which according to some of the research I've been doing online lately means he's getting ready to start developing the ability to feed, great news! And great news for us too, if he continues to do well on the CPAP in a few days the doctors are willing to attempt kangaroo care, we might actually get to hold our baby! And one last little thing, he just about needs his fingernails trimmed already!