19 weeks, leaving the NICU soon

In nicu speak, today is "day of life 136."  136 days in the hospital. It looks like his stay will be ending on day 140. They have finally told us that we can bring our boy home.  Oliver weighs 9 lbs now, a huge change from his original 610 grams.

I had requested a week's notice of discharge, and was promised it, but yesterday I was told to expect discharge on Monday. We still have a lot to do around the house to prepare, and not a lot of time to do it. Oliver will be coming home on oxygen, so we need to have a concentrator set up. He will still need to be fed through a tube, so we have to get a pump set up. And if he doesn't score well on either the room air or car seat tests, he'll come home on a blood oxygen monitor. David and I still have to be taught how to use all these things, as well as go through infant cpr training. And we have three days to get this done.

All of this, however, is still dependent on Oliver's eyes looking stable at tomorrow and Monday's exams. As of this week, his eye dr felt he was at least a month away from surgery, and that he was stable enough to move to weekly outpatient check ups. That could easily change, but hopefully they're still looking that way

In 1-2 months, Oliver will also need hernia surgery. If at that time he still is using the feeding tube, his doctors are recommending placing a more permanent g tube for feeding. I'm praying this doesn't happen. Several nurses and even the physical therapist have said that getting away from the stress of the nicu can be enough for some babies to figure out eating. They did a barium swallow study this week, and it showed that when trying to swallow an unthickened feed, the milk moved towards his nose and close to his trachea before he choked it back down into a position where he could swallow it. The thickened feeds still gave him some trouble and he adds an extra step into swallowing, but it doesn't show the risk of aspiration.

Today should bring the car seat test (45 minutes in car seat, sats can't fall), room air challenge (he needs to fuss when oxygen is removed before sats drop below 80%) and an eye exam. If all goes as hoped, we should be on the final countdown towards bringing our baby home.