Because Beckett wasn’t eating, we were actually able to sleep really well at night. He was so sleepy and would only wake up when the nurses came in to check his vitals. Then they would put him back to sleep. So even though Shawn and I were crammed on this tiny little couch we slept pretty good. After we woke up (around 6 am again!), I pumped and we got ready for the day. We met our nurse Tammy and she was amazing!! So fun and willing to help us with whatever we needed. We decided to give Beckett a bath because he was starting to smell like hospital. It was a little frustrating because he couldn’t have much water due to his incision and he couldn’t relax because we had to hold a hand and a foot out of the water due to his IVs. But even with all that, oh how he smelled so good after that bath.
He was finally looking and acting more like himself and the BEST part was that he gave us some smiles!! I had been saying all week that I needed to see him smiling because that’s who he is. He is our smiley, lovey boy. I can’t even express the emotion I felt when he kept smiling and cooing at us! We knew he was feeling better, incision, wires, IV’s and all.
He also continued to poop throughout the day. It was such a relief to know that his organs were starting to work again. I’ve never been so obsessed with poop in my life. Every diaper change we would inspect the diaper before the nurses would weigh them. We just kept tabs on color, and consistency (TMI, I know). And it looks like that is something that I’ll be doing for the next few years.
Because he was pooping, we got the green light to start feeding him. He was allowed 1/2 oz of pedialyte every 3 hours. He hadn’t eaten in 3 whole days but I just had a feeling that he would not be happy that he could only have 1/2 oz. It was important though, to know that he could keep it down and that it could make it through his entire system. So we did that for a few feeds and then we upped it to 1 oz because he was tolerating it well. Then we had shift change. Once it was time for the next feed, I talked with my nurse and she said, “Ok I’ll go get the 1 oz of breastmilk ready.” I said, “Are we done with the pedialyte?” She looked back at the orders and told us that it never said to do pedialyte. The orders were always for 1 oz of breastmilk. Turns out when our day nurse, Tammy, had received the ORAL orders she was told to start with 1/2 of pedialyte. But the WRITTEN orders said 1 oz of breastmilk. Poor Tammy felt so bad about the mix up but it was no big deal. We were just excited that he could have breastmilk. I was praying he would tolerate it ok. We tried that night and he did great.
Written by: Kimber
#loveyaBeckett 