Happy Father's Day to me

As it was Father's day, I got to hold Woody today and it was just awesome. Nurse J made a couple of scrapbook pages for the day and I must admit getting a little verklempt. I mean, for starters, I wasn't really expecting to be a father on this father's day, and STILL being a father after what lil' Woody has been through is pretty overwhelming if I stop and think about it, which I usually do my utmost to NOT do.

Last night, while Maggie and I were at the Toad the Wet Sprocket concert* Woody got really wiggly while they were re-taping his tube, and he managed to completely extubate himself. The nurses were unable to get the original size tube in there, so they were forced to put the small (the 2.5, for you experts following along at home; he had the 3.0 in before) tube that he started on back in there. After this happened, they called home and left a message for us, which I mercifully did not get before coming in; I would have never gotten any sleep worrying about that.

The new tube hasled to a substantial leak in his throat, and makes him have little squeaks and gurgles with most every breath. Despite his troubles with the hardware and some minor related issues with the vent settings, Woody seems to have stabilized very nicely and doesn't seem to have any real ill effects from the excitement. In fact, the blood gas test he had this morning was amazing: pH of 7.43 and CO₂ concentration of 48%, which are both the best we've ever seen.

The other change that Woody gets today, which we regard as a positive milestone, is that he is finally being moved from the original room in the NICU that he had upon admission, and is being moved to a room on the side of the unit, far away from the entrance. This is awesome, because his room right now is right next to both the main doors to the unit and the nurses' station, which means that it is very loud. Woody is sensitive to noise, and it drives me a little nuts when all the commotion is happening, so I think the new room is going to be awesome. The other reason the move is going to be great is that it's on the outside wall of the hospital, so Woody will get to have natural lighting for the first time ever. As we get closer to discharge time, we're going to be very glad for some time to get him accustomed to day and nighttime schedules, so the ambient light will be a very positive step for him.

Finally, Woody's weight is closing in on the magic one kilogram mark, which is just an arbitrary weight but seems big to me. Considering that he was only 565 grams at birth, it's an impressive amount of weight that he's putting on now. The NP told us today that he's running an average weight gain of 15.9 g per day over the last week, which is considered pretty darn optimal. I told Maggie that she is due the credit, especially for not being discouraged after the lactation expert told her that she had screwed up and ruined her chances of good milk production†. He's getting nothing but pure 100% human milk (and the additives, of course), so Maggie is obviously doing great.

*Yeah, yeah, yeah. TTWS is not exactly cool for some of you hipsters out there, but it's fun, inoffensive pop that Maggie and I listened from the year we first started going out (1993, for you historians). Besides, it was a real date, and we haven't had too many of those in, say, 2006. They were pretty likable live; I think they have some of the geekiest looking band members of any show I've ever seen. (Well, except for They Might Be Giants, but that ought to go without saying. NERDS!) When they first started playing, Mag leaned over to me and said, "those guys TOTALLY played Dungeons and Dragons." Too true.

†I am sorry to keep beating this dead lactating horse, but another thing I can't believe about the boob is this: why didn't she give Mag the encouragement to continue by pointing out that even if she can't provide all the nutrition the kid needs, it's still really beneficial to at least provide SOME OF the milk? I wouldn't keep saying anything except for the fact that Maggie is STILL anxious every time she pumps, which just makes me resent that person a lot.