Photo Shoot - Day 16

Good News!

 Finally some good news! After days of negotiating with the doctors, they finally released Enrique yesterday afternoon and we could not be happier. We suspected that he would thrive once out of the chaotic NICU environment -- no natural sunlight; alarms going off every minute or two; nowhere near enough snuggles; sensors, tubes, and lines all over our tiny baby; and constant testing, poking, and monitoring. But he has taken to being at home even better than we expected. I was bracing myself for a tough transition from bottle feeding to nursing, but Enrique has transitioned back to the breast with fervor! In the NICU, baby was being woken up to eat every three hours. Almost as soon as we got home, he transitioned to nursing on demand every two hours. He is eating voraciously and going through so many diapers and changes of clothes that we can hardly keep up!

Enrique, 2 weeks old and finally at home

The Waiting Game

Emil Enrique, 11 days old

Everything is heading in the right direction. Enrique had his feeding tube removed yesterday afternoon, making him much more handsome, comfortable, and independent. His eating and blood sugar levels have improved so dramatically that they've tapered down the blood sugar checks from every 3 hours (the first 10 days), to every 6 hours (yesterday), to twice a day. If his blood sugar does dip the order now is simply to feed him -- through his mouth! -- and not via feeding tube or with a dextrose IV. And now that he's eating and regulating his blood sugar on his own, he is scheduled to have the IV-like central line connected through his umbilical cord removed a little later today. It has been days since his last low blood sugar, so all signs suggest that simple immaturity was the cause of all the problems. Now that our little guy is up to 5 lbs and has had nearly 2 weeks to practice breathing and eating, he looks and acts just like any other healthy baby -- just a smaller version.

All of this progress suggests that he should be home soon, but I've been saying this now for the past 4 days and no discharge order has been written yet. They did some "final" blood tests early this morning, but the results from those won't be back until Thursday or Friday. He is no longer receiving any sort of planned medical interventions so it's a matter of negotiating whether we can bring him home while awaiting test results or if they're going to insist on keeping him until the labs come back. His doctors keep wavering between these options. All of us are getting impatient and a bit burned out from this whole experience and Fausto can't wait to have "his bebé" home at last.