Over it, big time.

I think there comes a point in every parent's time here that you think to yourself, "I am completely over this now.  If I never come back to this hospital it will be too freaking soon."  I don't know if it is worrying about the logistics of taking care of Claire and making it up to the hospital to see Dane every day, or if it is the feeling that I am having to choose one child over the other on a daily basis.  Maybe I'm imagining it but now I think Claire is showing signs of abandonment issues...she is becoming clingy and doesn't want to go to bed at night anymore.  It may also be that it feels like our lives are centered around going to the hospital instead of actually living.  Whatever it is, one thing is for sure.  I am o-ver it.

One mistake that I have made is that I keep a timeline in my head.  The doctors will say something like, "When he learns to drink from a bottle consistently and gain weight, then he can go home!"  and I will automatically think to myself, "what should that take, two weeks at the most?" and now I am on a false timeline.  I was hoping he would be home by this weekend, but now I am seeing that it was wishful thinking to have him learn to drink from a bottle within a couple of days when he has spent the last two months on a feeding tube. 

Part of it is, we are getting really tired.  The emotionality of the whole experience, the ups and downs, really takes a long term toll.  I think it is worse now because we are getting close to the end.  There is a feeling like we don't have to buckle down anymore because its almost over. Probably.  It's not like the doctors are going to tell you how long you may have, then we would pester them and hold them to their guesstimate.

As for Dane, he is doing great.  He is healing well from his surgery, taking more and more of his feeds from the bottle, and even got rid of his feeding tube today.  I also got to start trying to nurse him, which can be a harrowing experience for even a full-term baby straight out of the chute, let alone a two month old that has been fed through a tube his whole life.  However I must say we have had a promising start. I have been advised by the South American lactation consultant extraordinaire, Marta,  (she can get a baby in a deep sleep to latch on, she wants you to eat chocolate because that is what European and South American nursing moms do, so of course I have to do what she says...) to use the football hold tomorrow and see how that goes. 

He has surgery tomorrow at 7:45 AM to remove his stents in his nose and all of his stitches.  We'll be really glad when that is over, because he will be under anesthesia yet again. I will post again tomorrow to let you know when he is out of surgery and back in the recovery room.  After this, he will be moved to the intermediate nursery, which is even more progress toward going home.