Thankfully, Sebastian is getting better and better at sleeping in his crib and co-sleeper. He doesn't roll over on his side as much (the little "uterus" has helped), and if we hold him long enough after a feeding for him to burp and fall asleep, he'll go down in the crib without much of a fuss (most of the time!).
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| Sebastian and his Papi. I wish Sebstian slept as well as Carlos does. |
Sometimes, though, in the middle of the night or early morning, I'll look over and he's awake, with his eyes open staring at me intently. His eyes bore right into you...who knows what he's thinking. "Hold me," I think! Boy, does that baby like to be held!
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| How can you resist holding him when you see that face?? |
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| And here's what happens when you're not fast enough picking him up... |
He can burp like the best of them, too. Judy at the Brigham put it best--it sounds like he's sitting on a bar stool! For such a little guy, he's got a lot of power...
And a bottomless stomach. He literally cannot get enough food. It's a big challenge to figure out how much to put in his bottle. Breast milk is like gold right now--it's hard keeping up with pumping and breast feeding and bottle feeding--so we hate to waste it by over filling his bottle. But it seems every time we are conservative, he's screaming for more at the end of the bottle. That means heating up more while he hollers like a banshee. But of course, on the rare occasions when we overshoot on the bottle amount, he falls asleep and leaves precious milk in the bottle.
Carlos and I have adapted shifts for now, but those will probably become much more complicated or hard to stick to, at least at first, once we have two babies at home. Since Carlos gets up at 5:30 to go to work, I try to sleep from 8pm to 1am while he takes care of Sebastian. Then he sleeps from 1am-5:30am and I basically have the baby from 1am until whenever Carlos gets home from work in the afternoon. The period from 4pm to 8pm varies because one of us is at the hospital every day to visit Adrian.
You gotta love this kid, Adrian. He's the worlds BEST snuggler. And the sad part is, no one knew until Sebastian came home! We were all so busy getting Sebastian to stop crying and picking him up and spoiling him (because he's the pushier, more vocal, more needy of the two) that Adrian quietly waited his turn. Now, when we see him, he gets our undivided attention, and he eats it up. If you put him on your shoulder to burp him, after he's done, he just pushes right up against your neck and goes to sleep. He's such a good boy! And he feels simply enormous after getting used to carrying Sebastian. They are separated in weight by probably less than a pound, but it feels and looks like more.
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| I wish I had this picture on my good camera instead of the iPhone because I love it. |
After 2 good days feeding, Adrian had a choking episode again yesterday morning and continued to be uncoordinated in his bottle eating throughout the day. The funny thing is, last night or early morning when I was actually asleep, I had a dream that I was HIM. And I couldn't breathe. It was horrible because I could hear people around me trying to help me but I started to black out and then I woke up feeling horrified. I was hoping it was just a random dream, but I wasn't surprised to find out later in the day that he had choked that morning. I think I knew--believe it or not.
Something similar happened to me before I found out I was pregnant. I woke up in the middle of the night in a start--sat straight up in bed--and thought, "I'm pregnant!" I don't know why or how that happened, but it turns out I was right. I'd never had an experience like that before!
Anyway, today they are taking Adrian to Children's Hospital to do a swallow study. Again, it sounds much worse than it is. They pretty much know he's aspirating when he bottle feeds. But with the study, they feed him and can somehow watch the liquid go down and see where it goes and what's happening. Then, if he chokes, they feed him a thickened up liquid to see if that gives a better result. If it does, he would be switched to that thick formula until he matures enough to coordinate his feeding. In the meantime, he could come home on that formula in a few days. Then, in a few weeks he'd have to go back to Children's for another swallow study to see if he can be switched to the thinner formula.
Despite the fact that they are doing the study, he's still normal for his gestational age (38 weeks and 3 days). Many pre-term babies (and even some full-term babies) are uncoordinated in their eating. It's just hard not to compare because Sebastian figured it out so much sooner.
Finally, two days ago, I got to the NICU to find a note from one of our favorite nurses from the 8th floor, Patty. We hit it off with her right from the first moment we met her, and I was so happy to hear from her. She left a number for me to call when we came in, and when I called her she ran right down to the NICU to visit me and Adrian. This is her second visit to see the boys. The first was right after they were born. I miss my 8th floor nurses who took such good care of me!
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