Home Sweet Home

Today we finally got to come home. Yay.

Brian had his first journey outside and his first time in the car today. He was great all the way home, not really so much as a little whimper.

We had to stay in hospital a little longer than usual as we had to establish feeding. Normally this would all be worked out on the ward but because Brian's temperature was a touch low at birth he had to go under a heater in the special care nursery. Once babies are in the special care nursery it's really hard to get them out, because everything has to be 100% perfect and you need to prove it's perfect for about 24 hours. It seems that the natural instinct for a parent of a baby in the special care nursery is to do whatever it takes to get them out of there!

Anyway, after his temperature was fine, which didn't take too long his sugars were low because he needed food. Breast feeding wasn't coming together for either of us yet so Kevin and I made the decision to feed him through a tube. It sounds so cruel but all the information we had says that feeding from a bottle uses a different type of sucking and that some babies can't learn breast feeding after feeding from a bottle. The lactation consultant said that he was behaving like a premmie baby so we didn't really want to make it harder. We are happy that we stuck with it and everything now seems to be going great.

Brian's appetite made a drastic change overnight. He had previously been fed every 3, 4 or 5 hours (they gave us longer to try to breast feed him as the days went on because he was always so sleepy when they said he HAD to be fed). He started feeding almost every hour and for a long period of time, so long that Mummy was and still is totally buggered! Apparently this is completely normal. I think he is just trying to make up for lost time.

On Wednesday we were FINALLY allowed to room in. This is when all the other parents in the special care nursery look at you in jealously as you make your next step towards going home. Wednesday night I stayed with Brian and the nurse was a really big help as I became more confident with feeding. I definitely couldn't have done it without her help and advice. She recommended that we stay one more night just to get a better hold on things and I'm very happy that we did. Kevin stayed with us last night. Because of Brian's change in appetite I really needed and appreciated Kevin's help.

So today a fuzzy eyed Mum and Dad finally got to take their little boy home. Right now he is quietly sleeping in his very own cot. Every time I go and check on him I think he's missing because he only takes up the smallest amount of the cot, it's quite funny!