Day 131

That is A LOT of days to be in the NICU. It's 1/3 of a year! I've probably driven there 200 times which would translate to about 200 hours or 8 days of driving.

People often wonder how I do it. While I'm there I'm usually pretty busy. I try to get there a half an hour before a feeding to take his temp, change his diaper and do some tummy time. He's like his mama and does not like waking up, so we try to do it slowly. It takes 30-40 minutes to feed Dylan and then I hold him for about an hour. Then I just have time to pump or get some food before the next feeding.

I stay for 2-3 feedings during the day, then Mike usually does the 6:30 feeding, then I go back at 9.

Most of the time things are good. Dylan is much more interactive and it's fun hanging out with him. I feel like I am a part of the NICU community. I know more about the nurses than they could possibly imagine - and many of them come in to check on Dylan and me whenever they are working.

I've only had two days recently where I was close to losing it. This feeding thing is really hard and my mood is pretty much determined by how well he does.  But when I get really frustrated, he has a way of busting out a fabulous number!

At the beginning of the week he was taking about 60% of his feeds which was definite progress. But we switched meds from Erithromycin to Reglan and his numbers tanked. Lucky for me, this coincided with getting our house tented for termites and knee surgery for Stella yesterday. It's been a fun week.

His personal best is 67 which he did on Tuesday. That's two more than his minimum.

We are going to switch back to Erithromycin and hope to goodness it works or else we'll be talking g-tube. More on that later.