Home Where He Belongs

Weight: 8 lbs., 9 oz
I’m apologizing again for letting this much time pass between updates… I guess I shouldn’t have committed to updates once a week! J Things are going really well, he’s settling in just fine and we’re so happy to have him home. We’ve had some challenges with digestion and had about a week of some really cranky days, but other than that, everything is going pretty smoothly. My mom spent a week with us, and we’ve had a week on our own… I had gotten used to having Mom here to help out, especially when she would take him at 6 am, so Bran could get ready for work and I could get a few extra hours of sleep after being up a few times during the night. The morning after she left and our 6 am little Lucas alarm went off, I kind of expected her to be down the hallway! I think she loved me bringing him into her as much as I appreciated dropping him off for a few hours!

We’re still trying to settle into a routine and things seem to be getting more steady and predictable. The biggest adjustment for me is just dealing with this anxious feeling like I am supposed to be somewhere or doing something. This is probably a feeling that most working moms go through when they take a break from work, but with our lives being spent at the hospital during our free time for the past six months… it is really taking awhile to get used to having downtime. I’m so grateful to have this time with him though… learning the art of doing things one-handed, surviving on little sleep, and the sheer pride I now feel as I say “good job!” for getting out a big burp or a big diaper! I never would have imagined excitement in these areas!

He’s already growing and changing a lot in just over two weeks. It’s amazing the difference just a ½ pound makes in a little baby. The first week he was home, he wasn’t gaining weight… the doctor and visiting nurse were concerned that it was due to the many times he was throwing up, as well as he was not getting enough through nursing. So, we made an adjustment to supplement with more formula (with extra calories added), be more rigid in the schedule and feed him smaller amounts more often, and increased his dose for the reflux medications. The combination of these changes brought on 9 ounces of weight in less than a week! He’s creeping close to 9 pounds now and we can really see the changes in his face. He’s really looking like a big boy now and getting really strong. Feeds are starting to improve…he has not thrown up in several days, and we’re back to the original calorie intake on the supplemental formula because the increased density was causing him digestion problems. We’re now working on getting him to take more in one sitting so we can start to spread out his feeds (as they are sometimes every two hours for his preemie belly, even though his weight would indicate that he should be tolerating more and spreading feeds out to four hours by now).

He’s also becoming much more alert and interactive, he spends much of the day awake except for little catnaps, and by 8-9 pm, he’s totally crashed out for the night (except when waking up for drowsy feeds). We’re grateful that he’s not having trouble with this after the NICU, as many babies come out of there very confused between night and day and spend very little time sleeping. In the past week, we can tell he’s able to focus better on things, he’s finally making eye contact with us, which completely warms our hearts when it happens. Before, he would look in our direction or around us, and didn’t really lock eyes until the past week. We were getting a little worried that he had not started to do this yet… always wondering about a lingering effect of the neurological damage. I think it will be this way for us at every milestone, worried until he’s cleared it. So, we can relax on this now and enjoy looking into his eyes. I especially love it when he’s taking a bottle and has to turn his head to look at our face as he eats.

We had the kids the past two weekends, so they’ve enjoyed having him home, as well. There isn’t a moment throughout the day when one of them isn’t asking to hold him. Anna is a little wobbly holding him at her young age and needs a little help, but Abby acts like an old pro! Yesterday she held him while she watched a movie and every time we’d turn around, she’d have him in a different position… laying in her arms, then his head against her chest, then the other side, then they’d both be laying on the couch with her arms wrapped around him. Lucas was totally content even with all the shifting. It was so cute, and of course, we got lots of pictures! Being the fashion queen, Anna loves to pick out his outfits. She also keeps asking how old she has to be until she can carry him, and for some reason she’s stuck on the age of 8, saying she will be ready to carry him when she turns 8 years old… but we kept trying to explain to her that when she’s 8, he’ll be 4 years old, and as big as she is right now (it would be like Nicholas carrying her around). When she asked later why Lucas slept so much and Bran told her, “so he could grow”… she quickly said “wake him up, I don’t want him to grow any more, I want him to stay just like this because he’s just so cute.” Nicholas wasn’t able to hold him this weekend because he still has a lingering cold, but he spent a lot of time watching him and playing from a distance. He had him on the floor on the activity gym looking at himself in the mirror, and Lucas would kick and get all excited. I think Nicholas was enjoying it as much as Lucas was! We all took a walk to the park on Saturday and Nicholas begged to push the stroller. It was neat to watch, he was soooo careful and sweet with him, stopping every few minutes to make sure Lucas had his pacifier and was content for the ride. It was about a ¾ mile walk both ways, and he wouldn’t let anyone else take the stroller.

All in all, we’re adjusting nicely and other than a few testy days with a cranky baby, things are good and we’re enjoying him so much. Bran finally got to do the thing he’d been talking about for months… have Lucas on his chest while he watched the Alabama game on Saturday! I have lots more pictures that I’ll get uploaded in the next day… there’s so many, it takes some time to go through and pick out the best ones.