Dash day 6

I promise I'll continue the birth story, but tonight, I'm just exhausted. I'm so exhausted that I'm willfully skipping going to the hospital tonight for a late night visit with my boy. I need to try to take care of myself just a teeny bit.

I told Peter the other day that I have four categories in my life which are taking up my attention, and room for absolutely nothing else at this time. I have Baby #1 (Eleanor) at home, Baby #2 (Dash) at the hospital, pumping every 2-3 hours round the clock, and category four is shower/try to eat/sleep on occasion. Try to talk to me about anything else and it goes right over me.

So, yeah - we're pretty tired. But the good (GREAT) news is that Dashiell is doing fantastically today. He turned a major corner two nights ago, and continued with the huge steps forward progress today. I went in this morning and his oxygen had dropped from a 4 to a 3, and he was continuing with stable respirations. His bilirubin levels also dropped dramatically. When Peter and I went back around noon, he was completely off the oxygen support entirely! No nasal cannula, no oxygen machine, nothing. And, he continues to hold pretty steady with respirations. They still fluctuate a decent amount, but this is just fabulous. Plus, you can see his sweet face, and he looks just like his daddy. Like, twinsies. :)

Last night when we went in, the nurse let us try to nurse for the first time! I was so overjoyed with this news, and even more so when Dash literally latched right on and went to town. This boy knows what to do, for sure. In fact, he might even be a bit too eager, as he fell asleep very shortly after he started. Hopefully he'll get his stamina up soon and we can start nursing a lot more. Starting tomorrow (probably), we will nurse prior to him getting his feeding via feeding tube. While this is even more fabulous news for Dash (and me!), this means that life is going to get even more hectic. He has 8 feedings a day, and they'd like me to be there for as many as possible, which will likely mean sleeping at the hospital (and feeding him, then pumping, every three hours) and going back and forth a lot during the day. We'll need to figure out how best to keep Eleanor calm and give her the parent attention she craves, without compromising his feedings at the hospital too much.

We brought Ellie back this evening for her second visit. She saw pictures of him under the blue phototherapy lights a couple days ago and has called him Blue Baby ever since. She waved at him through his isolette, and his respirations went right up. I'm guessing this is a picture of their relationship to come!

Ellie's doing much, much better as well. We've really tried to get as much quality time with her as possible the last two days, and it shows in her attitude. She's much happier and calmer. We took her to the lake this afternoon to visit with my family and give her a change of pace (she's basically been in our home for the last 7 days straight) and she's been so happy ever since. Major relief all around tonight.

And with that, I head to bed. Or first - shower, maybe start a load of laundry (probably not, who am I kidding?), pump, wash pump parts, then go to bed. :) Sadly, I didn't upload any new Dash pics today, but here are two cuties of my first baby, taken by my sister.