Day 8 - Visitation Rules Suck!

Yes, I know that they protect our babies and I really wouldn't change them (really, I wouldn't) but it stinks that my husband's brothers don't even get to meet their first nephew. Or that they wouldn't even let our friends who drove us to the hospital into the NICU visiting room OUTSIDE the NICU because they had their 11 year old daughter with them. We had to walk the 20 minutes to get to the entrance to the parking ramp to have a visit, with no couches or anywhere to just have a chat. Turns out that guard was probably being a little too cautious and the rules should have let them come into the area outside the NICU but they didn't end up coming again, it was an hour drive for them and they just didn't want to risk it.

On the Jonah front, same old same old. They're starting to wean down his ventilator settings so that they can extubate him to a CPAP and eventually to a nasal cannula. He's behaving like a champ and I've become accustomed to glancing at his monitor and ventilator settings when I come in in the morning and knowing how it's going. I have gotten familiar with the equipment and it no longer scares me to see it all. I make a point of being there for rounds so I can hear the doctors explaining his progress to the students, which you might find useful as well but don't feel bad if you can't be, ask for updates every day from the nurses and any doctors you feel you want to talk to, I wasn't comfortable asking them to make a special trip so structured my day around being there for rounds and in retrospect it would have been completely acceptable to ask for an update, this is your baby and, if nothing else, you are paying for the doctor to follow your child. So speak up about any questions you have!