Two steps forward, one step back.

Joe, off cpap

Just as I was beginning to see an end in sight we've had a little set-back with Harry. We think he has caught his first cold. Yesterday it was looking likely that he'd be back in intensive care on cpap and they were just making a space available for him when I arrived at the hospital. Thankfully his blood gas was good so he is still in Special Care for now. His sats are dropping very low, to around 14-15% quite regularly but at the moment he is managing to recover each time himself. He was due to bottle feed twice yesterday but that has been put on hold for now, and his three hourly feeds have dropped back down to every two hours. His feeding tube which was in his nose is now in his mouth to make it easier for him to breathe through his nose. He is also on the brink of needing a blood transfusion again but they are trying to hold off on this to see if he can get better on his own.

I didn't get to spend much time with Joe yesterday because I didn't feel able to leave Harry in case the nurses didn't spot him not breathing. I know this probably sounds ridiculous to most people who haven't had a baby in NICU, and I have no choice than to trust he is looked after properly when I am not there, but sometimes the nurses ignore the beeping of the monitors for too long in my opinion.

Joe is now doing two hours off his cpap in every 12 hours (or it may be every 10 hours, I forget) and is doing well. He looks so big to be in there now, in an incubator and on cpap. There are babies there much smaller than him breathing all alone so he looks a bit of fraud. He is actually big enough for an open cot now but I'm not mentioning that as I was him protected in his greenhouse for as long as possible.

We have had a slight hitch with regards to my new pushchair. It arrived yesterday while I was being a bit of a drama queen and I am very embarrassed to say I returned it to Mothercare for a refund. Obviously now that everything is back in perspective it was a slight over-reaction on my part, but hey, there's a silver lining to every cloud and I get the thrill of ordering it again :)