Wednesday March 28th

I am certain I have never gotten ready for the day as quickly as I did Wednesday morning including 25 minutes to pump, S and I were out the door by 8:15 in order to make it to the hospital at 9 for his cares. When I went into the room, he was on the jaundice lights and a different breathing machine though he was still on the nasal cannula. They said his bilirubin went just over the line when they checked him at 9pm the night before so they set him up on the lights. The mask they had on his face was so big it covered nearly everything from the tip of his nose clear past his forehead. I guess it was the smallest they had. Otherewise he was still doing better than expected, he was on the lowest level of the vent and nearly breathing room air.

When his 1:00pm care times rolled around his bilirubin levels had gone from 6.6 to 2.6 in just over 12 hours, apparently he just needed a little bit of help from the lights and now he was good to go. They took him off the lights and the RRT asked if I'd like to hold him. Because it is kind of a big deal to get him out of the incubator and it causes him a lot of stress, they like him to be held for long periods of time (at least 20+ minutes) so that he can have time to calm down before getting moved back.This is also why they have 'care times' The NICU  does what they call Cluster Care aka 'cares' on all the babies, because taking temperatures, diaper changes, blood pressures, etc is too much stimulation to spread out, they do it all at the same time, then let him rest for 4 hours. I believe I mentioned he was on a 3 hour schedule the first day or two but he slept and rested so well in between they decided to let him get another hour of sleep in between. He has continued to do really well on a 4 hour schedule. I was beyond excited that I would be able to hold him for that long, and assured them I would hold him as long as they let me. Unfortunately after a few minutes his CO2 levels kept climbing so he had to go back into the incubator after only a few minutes of holding him. It was a little scary because his levels weren't dropping. They decided to do a 'blood gas' test and found out that the machine was reading his levels wrong by 40. So he was totally fine which was nothing but a relief.
I stayed by his bed until Rachel arrived just in time to see him for a few minutes before the NICU closed for shift change. It was nice to sit and talk while we waited for S to get off work and then we had to head home to be with E and get our dog from my parents house. I was really sad that I didn't get to stay the rest of the evening with him, but Rachel went back after shift change and told me he was doing fine.