Teddy Update

(some of you may have received this as an email, but I thought I'd post it here in case people missed it)

Once again apologies for not getting in touch with anyone. Our days at the moment consist of running around like crazy trying to maintain a juggling act of tending to Harriet's emotional needs (all related to me not being there and not to do with Teddy which is great in one way but bad in another of course), getting small life acts done (like doing the shopping and washing), expressing milk (which requires me to be either at the hospital or at home) and sleeping somewhere in all that.

To say that it has been exhausting doesn't really cover it. If this was our first child it would be a completely different story but having to ensure that Harriet is settled, happy, secure, and not too crazy with overtiredness is a full time job in itself at the moment, let alone trying to fit in the needs of another child who isn't available to you. James and I are running on pure adrenalin right now and so we really apologise for not getting in contact with people - be it by email or by phone it's tricky. Email requires us to be at home and we are mainly out and about all day, and you have to turn your phone off when you're in the nursery at the hospital so that removes a huge chunk of our day too.

As for Teddy, he is doing remarkably well. Yesterday he *finally* got the bloody UVC out (the fluid lines that were entering through his umbilicus). They were quite fragile and needed to be exposed all the time, so we couldn't hold him up against us or take him far or put clothes on him or anything. I could hold him with my arm cradled underneath him but couldn't have him right up against my chest. But now I can, yay! The other good news about the UVC being out is that it means he is now tolerating just breastmilk rather than it needing to be supplemented with nutrient fluids because his GIT was too immature to handle the milk properly previously. He still has his orogastric tube in since he still can't suckle at the breast properly, but he has had one great go at it where he sucked for about an hour, and a couple of other less interested turns where he was just too darn sleepy to get right into it.

Today Harriet is at preschool so I get the chance to go in there and sit with him on me for the whole day. When I went in last night he finally had some clothes on (a little green wondersuit, so cute) because they want to get him into an open bed rather than the incubator. He is so chilled out, all the nurses tell us how he just sleeps and looks around when he does venture to awaken. The only time he has cried was when his nappy was full - Harriet never cried at that, so I'll have to be more mindful of nappy changes now!

Well while I'm writing this I could be off at the hospital, so I'll end now and drive on over to see our gorgeous little boy.