6 Months Old!

Today Henry is 6 months old! That is very hard to believe. To me, the hospital stay seems like forever ago. Long gone are the days of wondering if he was going to make it and cringing at all the tubes and wires he had in and on him, worrying about noise levels and if he could handle his 1ml feeds. We have a new set of worries now but they are much more manageable. Strangely, it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that Kate wasn't even pregnant, and we only had our animals to obsess over. Despite it all, both Kate and I are very happy to be where we are today with Henry and think having him was one of the best things we ever decided to do.

Henry was 11lbs 0.5 ozs today. He continues to grow very well. He's actually looking quite chubby. The feeding techniques shown to us by the occupational therapist have been fantastic. He's eating more, more quickly and less often. This lets him sleep more, which makes our lives a bit easier.

We had an appointment with the pulminologist today. It has been a bit of a struggle dealing with them. They took him off oxygen at our last visit, only to put him back on it a week later due to low oxygen readings taken by the home nurse. At that time, 3 weeks ago, the pulmonology nurse said she was going to order a home overnight oxygen saturation study. 3 weeks of nagging her finally resulted in her getting the order faxed over to the medical equipment company who then had to get it approved by the insurance company. The insurance company refused to pay for it, but the nice people at Dependable Home Health decided to do it for him anyway. I'm rather shocked and very pleased that a company in this day and age would behave in such a friendly and caring way.

We received the pulse oximeter last night to monitor his oxygen saturation levels overnight. It was a bit of a flashback to the nicu days of staring at his sat level and heart rate for hours on end. We found that with the oxygen off , when Henry was awake, he ranged around 94%-96%. Asleep, he ranged from 88%-90%. He dipped down as low as 81%, which would have set off the alarms in the nicu, which triggered at below 85%. That was rather disappointing as it seemed to us that he really wasn't ready to be off the oxygen yet. We put the oxygen back on him and he ranged from 94%-98% both awake and asleep. The data are going to be given to the pulminologist, Dr. Brown, for analysis, but it seems to us that Henry is going to be on oxygen for a while longer. Very disappointing. I'm very tired of stepping on his oxygen cord and yanking his head and carting around the oxygen tanks everywhere. We have another appointment with Dr. Brown in a month. Hopefully he will be ready to be off by then.

Dr. Brown explained that his oxygen needs are due to the membrane in his lungs being too thick and not allowing enough oxygen to pass through. Also, his lungs are still damaged and underdeveloped. It is not a case where he needs to be off the oxygen to force his body to build the muscles needed to breathe, because it is not a muscle issue. It is something that just takes time.

Last night Henry slept very well. He is sleeping for longer periods and seems to have his night and days straight. At night he sleeps and wakes up to be fed and changed and then goes back to sleep. We are trying to get him more used to being in his crib, and hopefully that will pay off soon.

He is very much a morning baby. He wakes up around 6 - 6:30am and is very happy, smiley and likes to talk. He can make such cute little noises. Today, he seems to have had a particularly good day. He has been his 6am self several times today, smiling and talking and seeming to enjoy life. Grandma is trying to get him to say "I love you." I think I have my parent ears on because this evening I actually thought it kind of sounded like he was trying to say it.

He has been eating extremely well today. Twice he has downed 120ml's in a single feed. That is about 30 more than what I would have considered a large feed prior to today. He also slept a lot. He likes to sleep in the moving car so he slept to and from the doctors office today. On the return trip, he stayed asleep in his car seat for over an hour after we returned home. It allowed Kate and myself to eat lunch together, which I never considered a luxury until Henry came home.

He seems to be going for about 90 minutes between feeds. However, a couple times today that has been pushed out to around 3 hours, which I think is another good sign.

Tonight we took him to visit Grandma and Grandpa at their house. He seems to enjoy a change of scenery now and then. It is also nice to give his grandparents a small reprieve from their daily commute to our house.

Tomorrow he has an appointment with Dr. Hassan, the GI doctor. We will find out if he has any blood in his stool after changing his breast milk fortifier from Neocate to Similac. If he doesn't, then I think Kate will get the green light to start eating dairy and soy again. Tonight she ate a half a Turkey sandwich, after the deli screwed up her order of a veggie sandwich. She has been trying to work her way back to eating some meat to give Henry the protein he needs, which is hard to get when she can't eat dairy or soy.