It's about time

It's about time is exactly what Jared, I and I'm sure what Wyatt was thinking yesterday.

Yesterday Wyatt was 24 days old.  And we FINALLY got to hold our son.  Not pick him up in our hands for a second so that his bedding could be changed... I mean we really got to hold him.

His nurse, Maxine, has had experience with people who have different types of ichthyosis to babies with EB.  It was nice to have someone that was not only familiar with Wyatt's condition but she was also very confident in everything that she was doing.  During one of the many conversations we had she asked if I had held him.  I said that yeah, I had held him, but he was just in my hands over the incubator.  She was all, That's not holding him!  Do you want to hold him?  and I was like, seriously?!  She said that because his umbilical arterial line was taken out that it would be okay. :)  So I called Jared and bragged for a second, tee hee, then I washed my hands, put on a gown and she put Wyatt in my arms.

It was pretty amazing to see such a tiny life that I helped create so close to my face.  Up until that point I had only been a spectator in his life, not feeling very involved, but here regardless.  Holding my son for the first time was amazing.  I sympathize for all the mothers out there who have also had to stand by waiting.  No one should have to wait 24 days to hold their own baby.

When Jared came up, he could hardly wait to get his hands on Wyatt. :)

He's such a cute daddy <3

So that was the really big highlight of our day yesterday.

As for Wyatt... he got to eat for the first time ever!

He is being fed 3cc's of breast milk once every 3 hours and so far his body is handling it really well.

He was also weighed and measured and this little boy is getting beefy!

He weighs 2 lbs. 15 oz. and he's 15 inches long!

So in 24 days he's grown 1.25 inches and put on 12.5 oz.  People don't kid around when they say that babies grow up too fast.  Even though he's still so tiny, he's already so much bigger than he was at birth.  He doesn't look like a little old man anymore, he's a chunky little baby! :)

Today I got to do Kangaroo Care.

Kangaroo Care is a technique practiced on newborns, usually preterm infants where the baby is held, skin-to-skin with his/her mom or dad.  The parent's stable body temperature helps to regulate the babies temperature more smoothly than an incubator.  When you do Kangaroo Care it's important for you to have at least an hour to do it. 

The benefits of this for baby are:

Better brain development

Better emotional development.

Less stress

Less crying

Less brain bleeds

More settled sleep

Babies are more alert when they are awake

babies feel less pain from injections

The heart rate stabilises

Oxygen saturation is more stable

Less apnea attacks

Breathe better

The temperature is most stable on the mother

Breast feeding starts more easily

More breast milk is produced

Gestation specific milk is produced.

Faster weight gain

Baby can usually go home earlier

Benefits of Kangaroo Care for the parents are:

Parents become central to the caring team

Better bonding and interact with their child better

Emotional healing.

Less guilt

Parents are calmer

Mum and dad are empowered and more confident

Parents are able to learn their baby’s unique cues for hunger

Parents and baby get more sleep

Parents, (especially mothers)are less depressed

Cope better in NICU

See baby as less “abnormal”

So I did Kangaroo Care for two hours today and it was wonderful :) 

After the nurse laid Wyatt on my chest and left the room I was hit with a wave of emotion.  It went from intense joy from holding my son, to feeling sad as I looked at all the cords connected to him and finally the last three months of my life sort of slapped me in the face and so I cried.  I cried for Wyatt and the situation that he is in.  I cried for missing Michael.  I cried because I never got to do this with him and never will.  And then I realized that tomorrow is the 11th, which means it will have been exactly three months since my water broke and I was started down this path of no return.  So I cried a little for me.  I knew that at some point I was going to have to really deal with all of the emotions from everything, I just didn't know when it was all going to hit me.  While I was thinking about Michael a shadow crossed the floor across the room... but no one was in the room with me.  I wonder if my little boy stopped in for a visit.

Wyatt slept on my chest almost the entire two hours.  Towards the end he would get a little fussy, but I got him to calm down {which, by the way, made me feel like an awesome mom} so I didn't have to put him back in the incubater yet.  But after about 15 minutes of calming him down I grabbed his nurse to help me put him back so I could change his diaper.  He ALWAYS lets me know when it needs changing and sure enough, he needed a changing.

 

I loved that I got to spend so much skin on skin time with Wyatt today.  There will definitely be lots more to come in the future :)