The first weeks at home...

Sorry for the lack of posts!

We have been home since August 2nd, and have been quite exhausted. Alex completely has his days and nights mixed up, expecting us to party with him from about 10pm-4am. The last two nights have been better, waking up for shorter time periods to feed and going back to sleep. Giving me more sleep. I was getting a bit delusional trying to function on 2-3 hours of sleep per day for nearly two weeks.

Some of you know that as we were being discharged from the NICU on the 2nd, we received news of some concerning spots on Alex's recent MRI. The neurologist was on vacation all last week, so we could not get a solid interpretation. We were extremely anxious about this. Yesterday we received the best news possible from his neurologist: Alex's brain seems totally healthy and normal. The 4 little specks are areas of restricted water flow in the brain, but they are so extremely small that they should not have any residual effect for Alex. In fact, there could be many babes who have this after birth, and you would never know it without an MRI. The neurologist was so unconcerned that he completely discharged Alex from his services, without even needing to see him for a follow-up. We were extremely relieved.

Alex is also breastfeeding better every day. I can't describe how wonderful it is to finally carry on with life and just relax and enjoy my little one. We have had way too many scares in the past almost 3 weeks. I am happy to report that the adventure of being pregnant after having a preemie has concluded with a happy ending.

I will post more pictures when I get to it! I know I have been awful with keeping up on posts. I have had many questions as well as to whether this blog will be devoted to Alex's early years, as I did with "Alden's Story." I haven't decided yet. Alden's Story is really about the first few years of parenting a preemie, and this blog has really been focused on being pregnant after having a preemie. I might throw Alex into Alden's blog... We shall see!

Occiput Posterior (aka: The Dreaded OP)

Here is a link about why my labor was so terrible.

Apparently, I am one of very few nut-jobs who refuse any sort of medication to get through an OP delivery. Seems we were also very lucky to avoid a cesarian or vacuum delivery.

Feeding

Still in the NICU, although the only thing keeping him here is getting his feeding volumes up. It is common with brain bleeds, no matter how small, to affect a baby's stamina. Especially with breastfeeding. He is very effective at breastfeeding, but just stops too soon. We are weighing him before and after each feeding. If he needs to take in more, Dave finger-feeds him (a tube of breastmilk taped to his finger. When Alex sucks, Dave gives him milk with a plunger.) Finger feeding is like bottle feeding: easy for Alex, but no nipple confusion. Alex is taking in more milk from me every day, so I don't anticipate we will be here for much longer, hopefully.