Baby Bird, Entertainer

I don't know whether Baby Bird will share DH's and my love of music (singing it, playing it, or listening to it), but I'm making a first attempt to get him started.  He's getting so curious about the world around him that reclining in his sleeper or swing just isn't cutting it anymore.  So I wanted to get him something where he could sit up and look around and explore a bit.  We had put a Jumperoo on our registry and gotten it as a gift, but returned it after Baby Bird's occupational therapist at the NICU told us he shouldn't use one (they had noticed his feet turning in a significant amount, and while this was a natural result of being curled in the womb, we were given exercises to make sure his leg and feet muscles uncurled properly).

For a while it seemed fine to go without one, but as he's grown up a bit and gotten more interested in exploring, I wanted to find something to help satisfy his curiosity.  So, to replace the Jumperoo, I found this Fisher-Price Little Superstar Step N' Play Piano, which doesn't bounce, but does allow him to sit up, turn and step around a bit.  I don't know if it's really any better for his legs, so we won't let him play in it for long, but it definitely seems to do the trick of giving him something fun to do!

And here he is, checking it out (we just got it yesterday).  So far his favorite thing is to try to eat the maracas.

April 25, 2011: Our first days as (NICU) parents

[The following is a historical post, originally written on Monday, April 25, 2011]

Hard to believe it's been a week already; at the same time, it seems like forever since I could feel Baby Bird kicking me in the side like he was trying to dig a pipeline through to my kidney. It's been a good week, but a rough one, and I've lost it many times. I think what's hardest, and I summed it up for my husband a few days ago when I was feeling really out of sorts and exhausted, is that for so many months I was intimately linked to my baby, and felt his every movement, and all of a sudden he's not there on the inside anymore, but now that he's on the outside he's somewhere I can't even touch him.

Granted, since that particularly bleak moment I (and DH) have been able to hold Baby Bird for about a half hour or so each day (so three days so far), and that has made all the difference in the world (that and the fact that my milk supply continues to increase such that I'm up to being able to provide him at least four full breast milk feedings per day)! DH and I spend most of the time while he's in our arms just staring at him, or taking pictures, or we talk to him or each other so he can hear our voices, even while fast asleep. Yesterday I sang to him a little, a couple of French nursery rhymes I had sung to him while he was in the womb.

Preemie Land is a strange country. It's one thing to be a brand-spanking-new parent and have no clue how to do things, but to have the chance to wing it, knowing that after all, it's your baby and you can do what you want (within reason of course). It's entirely another to be a brand-spanking-new parent with no clue how to do things, and then be restricted from letting your instincts guide you on how to be with your baby. I know that Baby Bird needs to be in the NICU, and the nurses and doctors are doing everything in their power to get him ready to come home as soon as possible, but it's so hard sometimes to know where I fit into his NICU life. The nurses are really sweet and helpful and understanding, but sometimes I feel like I get in their way. Part of it really isn't anything to do with the nurses per se, it's just because Baby Bird's main issue is that he needs to stay calm and unstressed so that his lungs can mature. Whenever he gets upset, or cries, or fidgets a lot, it causes him to work harder to breathe and that gets in the way of his lungs doing the catch-up work they need to do. So there are times when the nurses don't want him to be bothered by anything, including me.

Of course, the irony of it is that, when they do put him in my arms, or DH's, he's perfectly content, and seems ready to stay there for hours. We can't, however, hold him for too long though because it means he's out of his isolette and he needs the warmth of the isolette to help his body stay stress-free.

Okay, pity party's over. He's been doing great, except for his breathing, which remains labored (Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or RDS), so it really depends on him getting his breathing under control before he will be able to take a bottle or breast. Once he can do either/both of those things (preferably the breast, but they won't let him go to breast until he can handle the bottle -- backwards if you ask me, but who am I, just his mom), and can go without the supplemental oxygen, he will be on the road to discharge. So we're looking at another week probably, at least. The tough thing, practically speaking, for me about his stay in the NICU is that, due to the fact that I am still recovering from his delivery, I am not allowed to drive for two weeks. So I am reliant on others to take me to see him. I'm such an independent person, this has proved especially frustrating to me. But, my cousin took me over on Saturday, DH and I went together every other day, and my mom is coming to stay with us for a week this coming Tuesday, so she will be able to drive me the days that DH has to work.

Ok, time to go get some other stuff done before I have to pump again. In the meantime, some more pics of Baby Bird (on his one-week birthday) for your viewing pleasure: