Hmmmm……it could be the gas Greyson was releasing while we were trying to change his extremely messy diaper (once while my face was entirely to close to him!) but it is probably Greyson’s stomach rumbling. Why would that be you ask? Go ahead and ask…..I’ll wait…….OK his stomach could be rumbling because for the first time in his little life he may be experiencing hunger pains.
So many of you figured out some of the numbers yesterday. For those who weren’t sure here they are in “real world” language. Greyson is now 5 lbs 13 ounces. He is 17.3 inches long. His head is 31.5 cm around (sorry I can’t remember the conversion on that one). He is 87 days old. Also yesterday his blood gas c02 was 65, although last night it had risen again to 72.
Oh, still wondering about the rumbling? Well today they made a major change in Greyson’s schedule. Until now he has had his care times every four hours and has been receiving continuous feedings. This means they were pumping food into his stomach all the time. Then every four hours we take his temperature, give him meds, change his diaper, and suction out his stomach to see how much food he had left. Well today they changed his care time to every three hours and are feeding him all of his food for those three hours over the course of two hours. This means he receives food for two hours then gets an hour break to digest it all. The purpose of this is to begin to move him to receiving food as a normal child would. They will continue this process until he receives all his food at one time (well over the course of a half an hour or so) and then works on digesting it until his next feeding. This will alllow him to begin to get hungry and eventually get to the place where he cries to let us know he wants to be fed, just like a real baby. Don’t be offended we recognize as much as anyone that he is in fact a real baby now, but sometimes we find ourselves talking that way. So we’ll see how he does on this schedule. If he keeps it up it will be nice for STacy and I as we stayed for two care times like usual, yet are home and it is not quite 8:30pm. This is much better than the 10pm we usually get home by.
Look out we are going to start eating like the “big boys”. It will be great for you and Stacy to get home sooner! Sounds like a great plan already. Like always we will continue to pray for his little lungs and prayerfully start seeing better co2 numbers. I sure hope you have something wonderful in store for Greyson on Christmas because not only will it be Christmas, he will be 3 months old!!!!! C E L E B R A T E!!!! (Just be quiet cuz you get into trouble when you party at the hospital and you are too loud….Stacy watch Bob on this because he has a tendency to get out of control)! I know that God has wonderful plans for you three.
Love you,
Tam