part ii

They kept D. in the ICU for about a week. Happily, P. and I were able to spend nights at the hospital-- gratis-- in this special room reserved for mothers who want to keep nursing their babies through the night. After 2 days of sleeping with D. in the room with me, it was hard to be apart from him even as much as we were. We spent days going to visit or nurse D. every few hours, and nights were much the same for me. We got to know the nurses on all three shifts. I've never had as much respect for the nursing profession (and I thought it was a noble vocation before!) as I do now. These women-- a few in particular-- were so patient, knowledgable, kind... they are the ones (not the doctors) who really seemed to pull D. through all of this. We had a few scary moments-- D. was put on a feeding tube for a little while, after still having erratic drops in his blood sugar-- & every time another baby in the ICU went home and D. didn't, I felt a little bit jealous. I didn't learn the names of any of the other parents we ran into, though there was communion and some conversation with them, but I remember the names of their children still.

D. turns a month old tomorrow. He's doing well. He's gaining weight and inches-- he was six and a half pounds at today's doctor's appointment. He's a lot more alert than he used to be. I'm not getting a lot of sleep yet, and I'm getting very little done during the daytime yet, either. Occasionally we can get D. to nap in his playpen or (even more rarely) in his crib. Most of the time he wants to be held. There are few things sweeter than watching him veg out and drift off to sleep in my arms. And there's this thing he does with his head after nursing-- he leans it way back and looks up at me... adorable.

Today we finally got D. to go into his sling and we even walked around outside with him inside it. Hopefully that will make it easier fo rme to get something more done in the house during the day. I've also just found a way to type and check blogs with the computer on the coffee table and D. on my lap in this chair... so maybe i'll be able to check in here more often, too.

There's no easy way to close this. But I can't resist posting another picture. I love the way he naps-- arms and legs sprawled out like this.