Rooming In

Today has been a practice-taking-care-of-Verity day without much help or intervention from the nurses (who are certainly available if we need anything). We chose to stay in our current room--when I learned that I didn't HAVE to move across the hall, well, that was a no-brainer. Why make more work for ourselves (not to mention the cleaning staff)?! We've been doing quite well all day! Officially we only needed to be on our own for 8 hours, but since the nurses aren't allowed to use our home pump, I'll be taking the night shift as well, so I will really get a feel for what it will be like to be on full-time Verity duty!

Verity's hearing screening was early this morning. It wasn't terribly conclusive; they will give us a "referral," which basically means their equipment wasn't able to determine that her hearing is "normal." This isn't too surprising; her ear canals are pretty tiny still. She will be screened again sometime in the next month or two, and if those results indicate any issues, we'll get a referral right then and there and go directly to an appointment with a specialist.

Meanwhile, the doctor checked in on us to see if we felt comfortable with a discharge tomorrow morning, to which we gave a resounding YES! Dr. Doom-and-Gloom (with whom I had an unfortunate consultation in November) will be on duty this weekend...I don't particularly want to stay in the NICU long enough to have to deal with him. (Although perhaps it would be good for him to meet Verity.) God in His sovereignty directed Verity's arrival to happen a couple of days after Dr. D&G completed his two-week rotation in the NICU; I am so incredibly thankful for Dr. A, who is so personable and compassionate and was the perfect fit for supporting our family and Verity. I wish she could be the one here to discharge us, but Dr. F is a nice enough doctor.

Anyway. Back to our "rooming in" experience. We totally have got this feeding thing DOWN! You can see proof of this in Verity's perfectly content demeanor:

She has been a dream baby! She has a bit of wake time around her feeds/diaper changes and has slept great. She fusses a bit but not much, and I've been able to do some "recreational nursing" times more so today than over the last few days, as she was extremely sleepy. Maybe in a later post I'll feature the home feeding pump for any inquiring minds who want to know, but I'm trying to keep this fairly brief!

Other than the feeding pump, we've also been using our pulse oximeter to monitor Verity's heart rate and oxygen saturations. Let me tell you, we will NOT be able to sleep through THAT alarm, lol. She's had just a few dips into the upper 80s but then it has climbed back up to the 90s very quickly, so thankfully that loud alarm only beeps 2-3 times. We have the electric suction machine on hand but haven't had to do anything beyond using a bulb syringe to get some boogers out after a few sneezes. :-) We can use the pulse oximeter as often as we like--definitely while we are sleeping so that we CAN sleep, and likely during the day if we are distracted with schooling or other activities while Verity naps nearby. But we don't HAVE to have it on all the time, and I very much am looking forward to holding our baby and allowing others to hold her without worrying about all these CORDS. Now...if we can just figure out how to deal with that feeding tube! I may end up taping it to her back in between feedings...any suggestions from folks who have done this before?!

I've heard good reports from the speech tournament our oldest two kids participated in this week. They drove home this evening with their grandma, who took over chaperone duty, allowing Ted to be home with the other 6 kids, driving back and forth to the hospital daily. Arden and Kenna watched the younger set so Ted could come to the hospital for the afternoon and be part of this rooming in experience. We are all incredibly excited that we will be reunited at HOME tomorrow!!! Oh, happy, happy day!!