Rowan got his first bottle today! Happy mother’s day to me! They are going to give him a bottle once per day until he gets the hang of it. Then we can work on nursing some more.
Rowan is doing really well. He is getting more and more alert. They are continuing to up his feeds each day. He is off the bili lights, so we can hold him more easily. And as of this morning he is wearing clothes!
On May 7th we went to visit him in his new digs. Much smaller NICU. Much easier to get to and deal with. I was a little frustrated with the lactation consultant. It felt like she was being a little patronizing, and acting like I was trying to rush things. But all I asked about was lick and learn. Which Duke had thought he was ready for. And I was caught off guard, so I didn’t really stick up for myself. If they think he needs to wait, that is fine. But I wasn’t trying to rush things! I was just going with what Duke had said.
Right after he was born there was some mention of him being transferred to Duke Regional. Here is a Facebook post from May 6th.
I will give Duke credit, they were very onboard with trying an induction, and not jumping to c-section. Unfortunately Rowan was still sitting butt down, head up. So c-section it was. At the moment I was so so tired that I was resigned to this without too much internal struggle. They put yet another catheter in, and started the mag again. Around 8pm on the 28th I was wheeled down to the OR. They gave me the spinal block, which meant sitting on the edge of the table bent forward while they poked around next to my spine to find the perfect spot. Bonus was that the person who did it was clearly still learning, and they were maybe a little too eager about the fact that I have scoliosis. Listening to the head anesthesiologist explain to the person sticking needles in my back how to deal with the curvature, and listening to her discuss what she was feeling in my back was not really what I wanted at that moment. Then I felt like I was going to pass out. The nurse quickly braced me more carefully, and reminded me to breathe. Then it was done, and I was told to lie back. They shaved me, washed me, disinfected me, whatever the heck they were doing down there. Then I was told that the spinal was definitely working, because they just tested by poking me really hard, and that if it wasn’t working I would have jumped off the table.
It seemed like every few days something happened that made them start talking about delivery. But we would work it out with medications. Or they would be okay with whatever symptom because it was “just ____.” I was wondering how many “just” whatevers we could stack together before the pendulum swung. I had had headaches off and on that could be explained a million ways, but were making us all nervous. But they would eventually go away. I was never under any assumption that we would make it to 34 weeks. In my head I made 32 weeks my goal.