March 25: Ethan's First Bottle

Another big milestone was hit yesterday. We were able to bottle feed Ethan for the first time and in usual Ethan style, he was a champ. :-)

Usually, I don't spend late evenings at the hospital, but I started work again this week (just until Ethan comes home), so got a late start yesterday. After work and getting errands finished, it was 6:30pm. Jon and I decided to have dinner and do a late visit to the little monkey. We got to the hospital at 7:30pm and I called dibs on holding him first (very mature, I know). We had a great nurse on duty (Katie) that hadn't seen Ethan since his first days and told us how excited she was to have him again. She loved all of his hair :) She was very sweet and I loved her immediately because she thought Ethan was adorable. (He is of course).

I digress. He was supposed to have another eye exam yesterday, so we asked about it. It hadn't been charted, so Katie called in Ethan's resident doctor to see if he had any news. The doctor didn't. But when there, he gave us his update. He said Ethan was doing great. They were still watching his respiratory rate, but said that he thought that it was time to introduce the bottle to him. I was thrilled! I have only been waiting for this for a month. It was about 8:30pm when we got this news and Katie said that we would do his 10pm check early so we could try this provided his repiratory rate stayed around 60-70. Of course, we stared at the monitors. I also gave Jon the chance to hold him, since I wanted him back for the feeding :). The transition wasn't as smooth as we would have liked and he had a de-sat. After the de-sat, his RR was really high. We worked hard to calm him. Katie gently warned us that if it didn't normalize, that we would have to wait. I totally understood this...he needs to be ready and I was trying hard to hide my disappointment. But the little guy came through for us. By the time that his checks started and I got his temperature and diaper changed, his RR was in the 50's...perfect. And, he was wide awake! The stars were aligning.

Katie took control first. She wrapped him up like a burrito, then showed me the preemie hold for feeding and how to burp him and such. Then it was my turn. He's so little and the hold for preemies seems like it would be awkward, but much to my surprise, I got the hang of it right away. We had to coerce the nipple into his mouth, which was quite humorous for us. Once we got the nipple in, Ethan just stared at me with these big, bewildered eyes. It was so cute, but you had to wonder what he was thinking, the look was priceless. I held my breath, hoping that he wouldn't start choking, and then we heard a loud sucking noise. It was awesome! Right away, his instincts set in. He still stared at me with huge eyes, but would do 3-4 sucks and then stop and breathe for 3 seconds, then a few sucks, then breathe. It was adorable.

The plan was to stop him at 10ml and burp him, but he sucked down 15ml before we knew it. I burped him and as on queue, a little air came up. His first burp...ahhh. ;) We started feeding him again and he really sucked it down. So much so, that with only 5 ml left of his feeding, he must have gotten some of the milk down the wrong tube and had a little choking fit. That was a bit scary. His oxygen sat went down the lowest I've ever seen it, but Katie talked us through it and he worked it all out and didn't even fuss.

If all goes well, I'll get to try this all over again at 4pm today. The whole experience was so awesome and it was made better than Jon and I were both there together to do this with him.

I'll post more pictures later after work. Just had to get this post out to give you all of the good news.

To answer Jen's question from the comments section: he seems to love the swaddling. Who knew, right? He was such a sprawler when in the isolette. But now that he's out, he has to wear clothes and always has a hat and blankets on him and it doesn't seem to bother him. As he grows, he isn't able to move around as much as he once did. All the extra weight and stuff. Although when burping him last night, he picked his head up out of my hands a couple of times. That still is so weird to me.

And to Laurie, who left a comment on the last entry. Congratulations to you and your new son, Canyon! Mine and Jon's thoughts are with you through this time. When Jon read me your comments last night during dinner, I couldn't stop crying. It's not an easy road when your world suddenly slams you into a new direction. Once the shock of it all falls away, it helps to gain support from where ever you can find it! We've been lucky to have such great family and friends there with us through this whole experience. If Ethan's story was able to help you through any part of this, we are so humbled and happy at the same time. Thank you for letting us in on your story.

When we started this, we had no idea that it would it would gain as much interest as it has. I am always hearing about someone outside of our friends/family group that had this passed on to then and now they are followers. I can't tell you how much this means to us (and makes me a little nervous as well...I'm not the best writer... :). Thank you.