A Record Breaking Day on the Food Front

Henry had a good night last night. Jeff moved the apnea monitor out to the living room. He was able to hook Henry to the monitor and put him in his Pack 'N Play bassinet for a little while. Jeff was also able to sleep in the couch with Henry, because he had the monitor on him. Jeff took care of Henry last night after I returned from school. Several students had questions after class, so I was late returning home. And, I got a ticket for supposedly speeding on one of the frontage roads and crossing a solid line. I do remember crossing the solid line. I was in the lane that was about to get on the highway, didn't want to be on the highway, and got into the frontage road lane at the last minute, which wasn't a problem because I was the only one on the frontage road. The cop spotted me from the highway. Ugh. I almost never speed, so I was surprised at that. In fact, I'm one of those people who frustrates others by chronically driving about 5 mph under the speed limit. The cop took 25 minutes to write out the darn ticket. I just wanted to get home and feed Henry, because I knew the milk supply at home was running low.

This morning, I weighed Henry at 6 lbs 5.5 ozs. It was after a so-called "blow out," which wasn't fun to clean up. Jeff had been holding Henry. I went to pick up Henry and felt something wet as I lifted Henry from Jeff's lap. But the good news is that Henry was weighed post-blow out, so the weight increase is probably real.

Henry spent the day eating and eating and eating. He has been a bottomless pit today. The day isn't over yet, and he has already obliterated his previous daily consumption record of 565 mls. Lately, he's been eating in the high 400s mls each day. But today, he has consumed 642 mls by 9:30PM as I write this blog entry. That's a huge increase from his average.

My dad visited this morning, and my mom took care of Henry this afternoon while I slept. My dad came back this evening. Henry is currently snoozing on Grandpa.

Henry in the Pack 'N Play

We had a great afternoon with Henry yesterday. About 45 minutes after Henry had eaten, I decided to put Henry in his Pack 'N Play, which has a bassinet feature. We have been careful to keep Henry upright for at least 30 minutes after he eats. Even this measure often doesn't prevent his reflux from getting the better of him. For once, he didn't seem particularly hungry at the 45 minute mark. So I tempted fate and put him in the bassinet, which is flat. We are a little concerned that Henry has only had primarily two experiences...being held and being in the Danny Sling. I want Henry to have the chance to do normal things, like kick up his toes and wiggle around. Henry seemed to enjoy the Pack 'N Play. He kicked his legs around and stared at the objects over his ahead for about 40 minutes. This was a huge relief for us, because it means that we will be able to put him down now, without having to get someone to hold him at all times. We didn't have the monitor on him, so someone has to stay nearby. Nevertheless, we felt like yesterday was a big step for Henry.









The monitor did not work again last night. I reread the manual. Did everything I could. I ended up calling the company who put me through to one of their techs who was on-call. He didn't have a spare apnea monitor in his van, but he said he could drive into town and pick one up and bring it over. I said that we could wait until morning. We live on a dirt road in the boonies, and it would be really hard for someone to find our place in the dark. The nearest stop light is 3 miles away from our house. I said that we'd stay up with Henry, which is what we did. I slept from 12:30AM to 3AM. Jeff slept from 3:30AM to 6AM. Henry snoozed for the most part throughout the night.

I'm posting some pictures of the road that we live on, which may give our friends and family who haven't seen our house some sense of why I didn't force the nice tech guy to the house at midnight. These pictures are from the walk that I took with our dogs yesterday evening.








I gave Henry a massage this morning. It went well. He's still a little hesitant with the arms, but he's getting better. He also tolerated some tummy time this morning without breaking into tears, which was good. He managed to prop himself up on his elbows at one point, which surprised me. He didn't last long, but every little bit of tummy time exercise is good for him.

The tech guy came this morning and replaced the monitor and cable. I think that it was a faulty cable that was the problem.

Grandpa Kenski came at 9AM to hold Henry. Nurse Michael came around 11AM. No change in Henry's weight. He's still 6 lbs 4 ozs. He took Henry's pulse-ox. He was going to write it down as 95%, but I pointed out that it was 88% for a good deal of the time. Again, I'm not sure why everyone always wants to write down the rosiest picture of the situation. I advocate for taking the conservative approach (what is the worst case scenario here). I pointed out that if Henry is spending time in the high 80s, the pulmonologists need to know because they'd probably be less inclined to remove his oxygen support. Believe me, I really want Henry to get rid of the cannula. But if he needs it, then he needs it. And the high 80s, while not bad, are nothing to get excited about.

I wasn't feeling well this afternoon. My mom accompanied Jeff to Dr. Cosentino's office for the hernia surgery follow-up. The doctor said that there's still a little bit of fluid in the area, but that's normal. All in all, the area looks good. The appointment was for 2:30PM. My mom said that they were in the car by 2:33PM. I felt guilty about not going, but of the appointments to miss, I knew that he was going to be fine. His scars have healed quite well.

I'm off to school to teach my three hour research methods class. My mom is with Henry now while Jeff gets some work done.

Henry's First Eagles Game

Jeff took the night shift last night. Unfortunately, the apnea monitor isn't working, so one of us has to stay up while the other one gets some sleep. We both tried fixing it (e.g., checking the leads, cleaning the leads, putting on new leads, checking all connections into the monitor, etc.). Every time we start it up, it starts beeping with the "loose connection" light on. We are going to try to fix it again today, but I think we need a new monitor altogether, which means that one of us won't get sleep again tonight.

Jeff went to bed around 6AM, but I got him up at 9:45AM, because the Eagles were playing their first game of the season. My dad came this morning around 8AM. He held Henry for the most part, while Jeff relaxed a little bit on the couch (perhaps "relaxed" isn't the right word; I've never known Jeff to be particularly relaxed while watching the Eagles). Henry ate and slept through most of the game.

At one point, I put Henry on the floor to give him a massage. But he was hungry again...he'd already eaten quite a bit. At this rate, he'll break his record on amount of breast milk consumed over the course of a day. The massage only lasted about three minutes. I flipped him on his tummy before I went to get him a bottle. He managed to roll over onto his back twice! He also did this for Jeff night before last. This wasn't the first time he had rolled over; but it was the first time that he had done this at home. He did it in mid-June in his isolette. While in the NICU, he almost always was nested in blankets, which made it difficult for him to move around a lot. We are excited that he is rolling over again. He also continues to have impressive neck strength. The first time that he picked up his head all of the way was June 8 (or minus 9.5 weeks to gestational term). Moving his head around to look at things is easy for him. We just want him to keep up the great progress. I forgot to mention yesterday that Henry was 4-weeks old (gestationally). We go by his "corrected" age when looking at developmental milestones. From what I'm reading, he is doing fine developmentally so far. We have an appointment at the developmental clinic next week.

Jeff weighed Henry this morning. He was 6 lbs 4 ozs. That's a 2 oz gain over yesterday!

Finding the New Normal

Nurse Michael stopped by yesterday. He's going to consult with Dr. Bianchi next week about whether or not the nurse visits are necessary. He has to get the OK from the doctor to keep the visits going because of insurance concerns. He weighed Henry at 6 lbs 1.5 ozs. Henry's pulse-ox levels weren't as high as they had been previously. They ranged from about 91% to 95%. That's not bad exactly. But when he first came home, he was consistently around 98%.

The other day at Dr. Bianch's office, the nurse measured it at 95%. It took her forever to get that because the pulse-ox device that they have wasn't meant for preemies. Frankly, I wasn't convinced that 95% was accurate. The monitor hung around 87% several times. She just took the best number given. I don't understand why medical professionals do that. For example, when they were taking my blood pressure in the hospital, it was always high until they had me lay down for 15 minutes and then took it. I thought this was a rather stupid measurement technique because I had no intentions of laying down all of the time (e.g., I had to stand up to walk to the NICU).

Both of my parents took turns with Henry yesterday. I don't think that there's really a whole lot to report on that front. I think that we all agree that my dad has the most success getting food down Henry and having it stay down. Henry didn't vomit as much as usual yesterday.

I didn't sleep last night. Jeff got most of the Prevacid down Henry. Some of it ran out again, but Jeff got more in him than I did the night before. Jeff tried to put Henry on the monitors, but they weren't picking up Henry's heart or breathing. By inspection, Henry was clearly breathing, so it was an equipment malfunction. I held him through most of the night. I got Jeff up around 4:30AM, because Henry was running out of food and I needed to pump. Then, Henry needed food and medicine, so I stayed up.

Jeff found another scorpion in the house this morning. I'm not happy about that. David, our pest control guy, came by on Wednesday. Sometimes that stirs things up for a few days after his visit. I hate scorpions, especially in the house. Yesterday, we found what might be evidence of termites in our bathroom. Yuck!

We took Henry for a walk with the dogs this morning. Instead of the Baby Bjorn, I held Henry in a sling. It was strange because Henry was at the level of my stomach. I couldn't help but thinking that he was supposed to be in my womb at about the size he is now. The last time I had held Henry for the walk that we took this morning was on the morning of April 30, the day he was born. Jeff was working, so I took the dogs for a walk that morning up our street. I can remember my vision going a little blurry on the return to our driveway. But at that time, I had no idea that I'd be delivering Henry less than 10 hours later.

I fed Henry when we got back from the walk this morning. Gave him a massage. He did really well with his massage yesterday. Today was OK. He's great with his legs, but he's tentative about his arms being touched. He has several scars from the PIC lines in his arms (his right side especially). I can't exactly blame him for not wanting to be messed with.

Around 10AM, I was ready to collapse, so Jeff took Henry while I took a nap. He weighed him in my absence. 6 lbs 2 ozs!

I got up around 2:20PM, just in time to see my dad for a little bit before he and my mom switched. Henry is with my mom now. I'm about to get some school work done. Jeff is organizing some of the huge piles of mail that we ignored while in the NICU. We are backlogged on some household duties. Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks, we'll manage to get the household back in some kind of order and figure out what our new "normal" is going to be.

Eating, Eating, Eating

Jeff and I have worked out a schedule where he tries to sleep from 9PM to 12-1AM. Then, we do our shift change, which always takes a bit longer than one would expect, and I sleep from 1-5PM. Last night, I ended up going to sleep around 2:30AM, because I had some work to do. When my parents are here during the day, at least one of us tries to take a nap. I was the lucky one today that got some sleep while my mom took care of Henry in the afternoon.

Henry didn't sleep much this morning or this afternoon. He slept for maybe half an hour on my chest. He started up the eating constantly in small doses again. This made it impossible to do his massage today; the timing wasn't right. But I did force him to spend a few minutes on his tummy, because tummy time is really important for him building up his neck and back muscles. I read something online that said that many kids today are crawling later than they use to because of the whole "Back to Sleep" prevention of SIDS. Henry sleeps often on his tummy while in the Danny Sling because of his reflux. The tummy position is actually the preferred position for the Danny Sling. One of the nurses recommended it. And, one doctor independently suggested it as well. Putting them on their back when sleeping is supposed to decrease their chances of having SIDS. So sleeping on the tummy is a concern. But we only do it when he's hooked up to the monitors. His crib doesn't have any toys in it and doesn't have bumpers along the sides (again, for SIDS prevention). We are also having him spend some time on his back. Because once he's off the monitors, he'll need to sleep on his back.

Dr. Bianchi called this afternoon. He talked with Dr. Hassan and decided that we should give Prevacid a try as a replacement for Ranitidine (his current acid blocker). The nice thing about Prevacid is that it lasts 24 hours; Ranitidine only lasts 12 hours. Prevacid is stronger, and Dr. Bianchi hopes that this will help with Henry's vomiting issues.

We weighed Henry today at 6 lbs 1/2 ozs. Jeff also used our baby scale to weigh our cats: Princess (8 lbs 4 ozs), Bits (8 lbs 10 ozs), and Jackson (8 lbs 14 ozs). We're a little concerned about Jackson. He has a tendency to stop eating when he's stressed. I'd prefer to see him weighing a few more ounces than he does. I was surprised that Princess was over the 8 lbs mark. She's usually more like 7 lbs. Bits is holding her weigh well; she's mainly muscle.

Jeff and I finally managed to give Henry a bath. He was two days overdue. The prior evenings, Henry was always eating. Then, Jeff had to get to bed (he has to get some sleep). So bath time didn't work out. Tonight around 6:30PM, Henry seemed like the bottle he'd consumed was going to last him a little while. So we moved quickly and got him bathed. He seemed to enjoy it tonight. We took his cannula off while we bathed him. And, we both agree that having the cannula off made him happy. He has been fighting us on keeping the cannula in his nose for a couple days now. At his gestational age, he is supposed to be self-soothing by putting his fingers in his mouth. He does this a little bit, but more often, his hand touches the cannula tube when he touches his face, and then he spends time trying to rip it off. He made himself upset the other day because he got his hand underneath the tubing and then pulled really hard, which made the "tender grip" pad pull on his skin as he ripped it off (it would be like ripping a really sticky band aid off one's face). Anyway, he looked super cute without his tubes. We made the bath rather quick, because we didn't want him going without his oxygen for an extended period of time. Henry was wiped out by the bath and snoozed in the towel in my arms as Jeff put on the new cannula. Henry's moved up a size on nose pieces (from the 1601 to the 1615), which means he's getting bigger. Jeff did an excellent job putting on the cannula. Instead of the "tender grips" to hold the cannula in place, we decided to go back to the duoderm on his skin and then Spiderman bandaids to hold the tubing on top of the duoderm. This should make it more difficult for Henry to take his cannula off.

My dad has been holding Henry since his bath. Somehow, my dad manages to get Henry to eat quite a bit without vomiting. He has the touch. Henry usually has a very calm disposition when he's with his Grandpa. Henry is currently sacked out on my dad's chest. It's about 10:30PM, so I think that we'll have to risk waking Henry up, so that my dad can go home and get some sleep himself.

Six Pounds!

Today Henry hit 6 pounds! He's finally closing in on what a typical newborn would weigh. A bit exciting and depressing at the same time.

Our excitement over this milestone was tempered by some major vomiting this morning. This time it was bad enough that we made a visit to the pediatrician. He advised increasing his dosage of Reglan from .2 ml's to .3 ml's. He is also going to check with the GI doctor about changing him from his current acid blocker to a different one that is stronger.

In the waiting room at the doctor's office a woman was admiring him and commenting on how small he was. She asked how old he was and I realized I don't really know how to answer that. I guess it would make the most sense to say he is 3 1/2 weeks old, based on his due date. Thankfully he isn't going to be out in public too often so we won't have to try to explain his circumstances too many times. Otherwise I might just have to print up business cards to hand out to save us the trouble of explaining over and over what his situation is.

We tried to take him for another walk tonight but it rained. In Arizona. Go figure.

Feeding him lately has become an exercise in patience. He frequently gets very worked up and will suck for a few moments before batting the bottle out of his mouth, flailing his head side to side and screaming. Wait a few moments and insert the bottle and he calms down and sucks for a few moments before repeating the screaming and flailing. Patience isn't my strong suit right now. Feeling exhausted and frustrated I said to Kate today, "How is it that the planet is over populated?" I can't imagine putting oneself through this more than a couple times in one's life.

Amazingly he is still growing despite the vomiting and flailing. One of our friends said that fussiness often precedes the development of a new skill. If that is the case I'm expecting him to create a perpetual motion machine or start speaking mandarin Chinese any minute now.

We made an appointment with yet another set of doctors today. These are actually doctors from the NICU who have a developmental clinic. Woohoo, more doctors!

Last night I took the night shift and Kate relieved me around 5am so I could go work. Henry was actually fairly restful. The problem is that before putting him to bed we have to hook him up to the apnea monitor. This requires a belt that goes around his chest under his clothes. So if we don't think ahead we find ourselves with a peacefully resting baby with no monitor strap on. To put him to bed we would have to wake him up to put the strap on. Bye bye peacefully resting baby. Last night I just let him sleep which meant zero sleep for me. I'll try to remember to put that monitor strap on earlier in the evening from now on but my mind just isn't working too well.

Henry's First Tour of the Neighborhood

Jeff was on the night shift last night. Henry didn't sleep all that much. He still continues to vomit on occasion (spit up about 15 ml of a 40 ml bottle). Amazingly, he continues to gain weight. Nurse Michael visited today. Henry weighed 5 lbs 15 ozs. He thinks that Henry looks fine.

Grandma Kenski helped out this morning, while I went to see the eye doctor. I'm not sure what we'd do without my parents' help. Even with their help, it is hard keeping everything straight. Henry still has way, way more doctors' appointments that the average full-term baby. He is currently on four medications. Those are tough because two have to be administered at least 15 minutes before he eats, one has to be given in his food, and one has to be given after he eats (and can't eat for 30 minutes). Plus, there's the oxygen to consider. On a happy note though, Henry is finely sleeping in ever so slightly longer periods of time. I suspect that most new parents find the initial period of having a baby difficult with the sleeping, feeding, and all stressful. Add 109 days of terror and sleep deprivation prior to the "baby coming home," and it is a bit waring on one's sanity. Henry finally sleeping for 45 minutes at a time is a real blessing for us.

Jeff and I took Henry for a walk around the neighborhood this evening. Henry is allowed to go outside based on NICU recommendations. But we can't let any neighbors lean over and breath on him or touch him. Courtesy of Carmen Stitt, one of the UA's fabulous graduate students, we put Henry in a Baby Bjorn. He snoozed through the entire walk.

I'm off to help Jeff with dinner. Henry's still sacked out in the Baby Bjorn! Thanks, Carmen!

Henry Houdini

Grandpa Kenski visited Henry in the morning. And, Grandma Kenski took the afternoon shift. Henry had his very fussy moments in the afternoon, but he also worked in a two hour nap as well while Grandma held him.

Henry's weight today: 5 lbs 13.5 oz

Having my parents around has been quite helpful because it allows me to get things done around the house. Today's mission was reorganizing our freezer space. Because Henry wasn't ingesting much breast milk initially (micropreemies don't eat much in the early days outside the womb), we have a backlog of frozen breast milk. I was initially inclined to do the so called "pump and dump," but everyone in the NICU said to freeze it. I think that they really push mothers to freeze it because many mothers stop breastfeeding after a few months. And, they want preemies especially to be on breast milk as long as possible. Statistics vary across studies, but something like 74% of women start off breast feeding. This drops to 34-39% after a few months. I would suspect that for NICU moms, the drop off may be earlier. Exclusively pumping for months on end is well...not fun. We had so much milk that we ended up buying a 13 cubic feet freezer because our regular freezer was filled. The NICU staff told us to ask family, friends, and neighbors if we could store milk in their freezers. Buying a second freezer seemed like a better option. I personally would find it a bit awkward to ask my neighbors if we could store breast milk in their freezers. I transferred all of the pre-diet change milk to the large freezer. Since it was discovered that Henry has milk and soy allergies, he may not be able to consume this milk. Hopefully, Henry will outgrow his allergies, and he'll eventually be able to have it. It can keep in the freezer for up to 6 months, so we'll keep it until then.

Our dog Marley was cute tonight. Well, she's always cute, but she outdid herself. Henry was screaming, and Marley circled the chair that Jeff was holding Henry in. She kept poking her nose over the edge of the chair to make sure Henry was OK. It was sweet.

Because Henry continues to be fussy and a bit "disorganized" at times, Jeff and I have implemented a Back to Basics plan of action, whereby we make sure that Henry is swaddled nice and tight in order to minimize his disorganization (e.g., arms flailing about, lack of focus). The problem, unfortunately, is that Henry is a master of getting out of any swaddling job. I openly admit that I'm not a good swaddler. I missed the evening in the NICU when Melissa J. taught Jeff how to swaddle, and when he does it, it is nice and tight. Jeff really does a great job. Even when Jeff swaddles Henry nice and tight, Henry is amazingly persistent at getting his arms out. He is quite a little Houdini when it comes to getting out of a swaddling job. As I write this blog entry, Henry has managed to get his feet out of the blankets. Jeff managed to constrain his arms, but there's no constraining the whole Henry.

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.

Henry the Wild Man

Yesterday, nurse Michael came by and weighed Henry at 5 lbs 10.5 ozs. He initially thought that Henry looked pale. But he wasn't concerned because once Henry got peeved, his color returned to him.

In my free time, I had a fun round of talks with Schaller Anderson about why they weren't paying the $170 for the emergency anesthesia from my c-section. But let me back up. Our case manager at Schaller Anderson sent me a letter about two weeks ago saying that she assumed that I wanted to discontinue case management because she had not been able to get ahold of me. Mind you, I had talked with her three weeks earlier. Not sure what the fill-in-the-blank was going on for her to assume that we no longer wanted case management. I called her three times and left messages saying I had no idea that she had been trying to get ahold of me. She never left any messages on my voice mail and had not called Monday through Friday during the day because Jeff would have heard the call because he works from home. She finally called Friday and said that every time she called, she got a message saying that her number had been blocked from our line. But miraculously, it worked yesterday. I asked her about the $170 that Schaller Anderson had not paid for the anesthesia. She had called the claims department. Talked with someone named John C. (who wouldn't give his last name) and was told to have me call him. He couldn't talk with her because of privacy issues. This makes me of course wonder what the fill-in-the-blank a case manager is good for, if their own company representatives won't discuss the cases with them.

I called benefits looking for John C., but the woman answering the phone wouldn't transfer me. She said that she'd handle it. And, yes, they were denying the anesthesia because UPH (University Physicians Healthcare) had billed the c-section anesthesia as two line items (one for the anesthesiologist's time and one for the 2 units of anesthesia) instead of one line item. In other words, they were refusing to pay because UPH had described what they were billing them for. This was the same fill-in-the-blank that they had given me when I called them on 7/10. I said that they were being ridiculous. That I was taking care of a critical infant and that they weren't helping matters by giving me the run-around because of their nonsensical rules. The woman said that those were the rules. Essentially, she said that it was my responsibility to talk to UPH to get them to conform to Schaller Anderson's fill-in-the-blank billing practices and send things under one bill with one line item. What a bunch of fill-in-the-blanks.

I called UPH again. They reviewed the file and decided that the $170 wasn't worth pursuing. They aren't going to charge me for it. I thanked the woman at UPH and said that I realized that they were being gracious and that Schaller Anderson wasn't being responsible.

My dad visited Henry in the morning yesterday. My mom came by in the afternoon. We gave Henry a bath. He was pretty unhappy about it. I took the night shift of the Henry watch. Henry didn't sleep much.

Today (Saturday), we weighed Henry in mid-morning on our new baby scale. He was 5 lbs 11 ozs.

Jeff went to the grocery store. Brought some Sun Chips home. I had some. Then, unfortunately, I realized that they contain whey and nonfat dried milk in them. This, of course, presents a problem with Henry's milk allergy. Hopefully, this small amount won't effect him. But I've read cases online that say that even trace amounts can have them bleeding for several days after. Frustrating, because Henry has finally gone for over 24 hours without blood in his stools. Stools still contain mucous, suggesting inflammation, but the no blood is an improvement.

My mom came by in the afternoon. Henry had a nap that lasted an hour and a half (that's his new record for minutes sleeping straight). In the evening, he was a wild man. Vomited all over the place. Wouldn't settle down for the longest time. He would root, but then wiggle around like he didn't know how to suck on the nipple of the bottle. I tried nursing him. That worked for a few minutes but then he would shake his head back and forth not wanting to latch, despite making his "I'm hungry" La Cry.

Jeff and I really want to start infant massage with him. Babies who have massages on a regular basis gain weight faster than those who aren't given massages. But we can never seem to find a time when Henry is in a quiet, alert state that doesn't involve having just eaten. He's either screaming because he's hungry, drinking his bottle, content just having eaten (can't put him down horizontally for a 1/2 hour because of reflux), or taking an incredibly brief nap (in which case we don't want to disturb him).

Grandpa is holding him down. Looks like they are both taking a nap. Nice that he's finally not so crazy.