Milestones
The milestones for Finn are a lot different than the ones you use for a typical baby. Every week I get an email saying “Your XX Week Old” with a list of exciting things your baby should be doing. It obviously upsets me but I can’t quite hit “unsubscribe” yet. If I unsubscribe from the emails it feels like giving up. As if it’s admitting that Finn will never be normal or hit those regular baby milestones. That may seem strange but I am not ready to give up yet. I have faith that he will catch up as soon as we can get out of here. This baby has a determined mama and he is clearly stronger than anyone has given him credit for.
We are now paired with another child which means that our nurse monitors/takes care of two kids at the same time. This is an important milestone in recovery and we hit it today. It means that Finn is stable enough to not require full time care. The baby we are paired with had some sort of heart surgery. He is a tiny little babe who was clearly premature. The nurses can’t share info with me but I see him and he is significantly smaller than either of my boys were at birth. Today when I came back to the hospital I saw them putting jammies on him. It’s crazy to think that this is a milestone I am looking forward to. Being able to wear jammies is a huge step here. It means he is stable, that they aren’t constantly watching his respiratory function and don’t need immediate access to his fragile little body. Seriously, that is what I am looking forward to - putting clothes on my child. Twisted, isn’t it?
There are several other milestones I am anxiously awaiting and will be tracking closely. There are the obvious ones like no more respiratory support or removal of his PICC line and then the one that includes the reason for us being here, removing the feeding tube and tackling the eating issues. It also includes moving down the hall to the care center section of the floor. This will indicate that we don’t need to be seen by the doctors as much and there is less anticipation of an event happening that would require immediate assistance. It sounds so much more simple than it is. We add quickly and take away slowly. I'm grateful that we haven’t added anything since mid last week but the slow wean feels like it’s taking a lifetime.
April 9th, 2017