A Pound Heavier

He continued to vomit quit a bit yesterday. I did the early morning (4:30AM) shift on Sunday, when he managed to do a nifty over the back projectile vomit maneuver that splattered all over our new glider!

I gave Henry his first full body massage at home in the morning. Nurse Penny had shown me a few massage techniques the day before Henry was sprung from the NICU. It is recommended to take all of the baby's clothes off while doing the massage. We plan to do this eventually. But in the meantime, we've opted for the all clothes off except diaper approach because Henry's been rather adept at squirting his father several times and his Grandmother at least once this past week. I have avoided being hit so far. Didn't want to take any chances. Grandma Kenski brought me some coconut oil the other day for the massages. Most massage oils contain mineral oil, which babies shouldn't ingest, so we are using real oil from the coconut (not scented mineral oil).

The massage yesterday went well. Henry was pretty calm. He's still guarded about his chest and abdomen. Preemies who have spent lots of time in the NICU tend to be more guarded about their bodies than full-term babies do. He actually did really well with his feet being touched. The feet tend to be a particularly sensitive spot for preemies, because of all of the needle picks that they've had to endure for various blood tests. I tried to end the massage but putting him on his tummy, but he didn't like that. The tranquil moment promptly ended at that point. I then handed him off to Grandpa Kenski for feeding.

The good news for the day was that Henry weighed 5 lbs 13 ozs. This was great because it means that he gained 1 lb since being home from the NICU. It has taken him a while to get to this point, because his surgeries really threw his eating progress off course.

Henry was rather fussy in the late afternoon, early evening. Jeff took the late afternoon shift after my mom left, while I went the mall to get some new towels. At one point, when nothing would satisfy Henry, Jeff let him cry for a little while. We know that many parents say to do this with their kids (who aren't preemies). We, however, haven't done this often because of Henry's chronic lung disease (bronchopulmonary dysplasia or BPD). There are, unfortunately, many suggestions that simply don't work when the baby is a preemie. He looks like a normal baby, just two pounds smaller. But he unfortunately has lingering problems that clearly make him unlike a regular, full-term baby. The bottom line is that we can let him cry for a little bit, but crying uses up a lot of oxygen. He doesn't have the lung capacity to recover as quickly as babies without BPD do. When the oxygen gets used up too fast, the oxygen saturation in the blood goes down. In short, when he cries, we still have to watch him like a hawk to make sure that he's OK. Yesterday, Henry did calm down for Jeff. When I came back from the mall, I held Henry, while Jeff made dinner. Henry got fussy. I tried settling him down by nursing him. Sometimes he prefers that to the bottle. He nursed for about 50 minutes with a few emesis episodes during it.

Henry had a relatively quiet evening. He actually slept quite a bit. The catch, of course, was that he wanted to be held while sleeping. Jeff did the night shift. He didn't get any sleep because Henry wanted to be held all night. We desperately want him to get some sleep, so Jeff obliged.

Jeff got me up around 5:30AM. We did Henry's massage around 7:30AM. Henry seemed like he was in a nice quiet, alert state. He didn't enjoy his massage today as much as he did yesterday. I think that he was too hungry to enjoy it. Between Henry's four medicines (all of which have specific administration times throughout the day) and Henry's on-demand eating schedule, it is hard to time these things right. I had the TV on (sound off, closed-captions on) while I was doing the massage. He seemed annoyed with me, but discovered the TV and was fascinated with "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me." I suspect that he liked the very bright 60s color scheme. A couple nights ago, when Jeff was pacing around the living room holding Henry, he noticed that Henry's head would turn toward the TV every time Jeff changed directions. He caught Henry watching bits of "The Untouchables." Clearly, we are going to have to rethink the television programming in the living room.