Kangaroo James

Things are looking good with Joshua.  I think his face is starting to fill out a little, and he seems to like the NG (nasogastric) tube better than the OG (orogastric) tube.  Tonight he weighed in at 1090 grams, or 2 lbs 6 oz.  His breastmilk feeds have increased to 6 ml every 3 hours.  They are increasing each feed by 1 ml every 12 hours, and he is tolerating it well.  I guess the biggest thing to report today is his huge, up the back, blow out poop.  Oh yes, folks, that's the stuff that makes me excited these days.  His GI system is working well! 

James spent most of the day with Joshua, and he got to hold him for the first time.  They had about an hour of skin on skin time.  And unlike every cell phone and Ipod type device James has come in contact with, Joshua didn't break!  :)  It was good father-son bonding.  James came home this afternoon, and I drove in, and I got to hold Joshua, too.  We snuggled for 2:30, and he slept the whole time. 

A couple of things I'm thankful for today...

1.  My super flexible job.  I can work as many or as little shifts as I want, and there's no pressure to hurry back to work.  Prior to all this, I was just working one 72-90 hour shift a month in the ER and a couple of days a month doing disability exams, so I was pretty much a stay at home mom anyway.  I can't say I'm feeling a huge rush to get back into things at this point.

2.  Excellent health insurance.  We got a bill today saying Tricare paid it, so nothing for us to pay.  It was for the amniocentesis, one test that had multiple labs drawn off it.  It was for over $6,000!  Holy cow, I wonder what all of those 3x a week ultrasounds and perinatologist visits and hospitalizations added up to!  My advice to anyone who is without health insurance right now:  get on some sort of plan.  I can't imagine going through all this with the underlying stress of "how are we going to pay for this?"  The other thing I realized from that bill was of the >$6,000 charged, Tricare only paid $1,300, and that seemed to be fine with everyone.  In what other situation in life can you get away with paying a fraction of what you owe?  It would be nice to just say, "no thanks, I'm just going to pay $20 instead of the whole $100 water bill this month."  I don't think that would go over so well.