Short term goals

Daniel with Grandpa Steve. He hasn't used the feeding tube shown here in 24 hours but they are keeping it in just in case

Finally awake and checking out his surroundings

The whole family. Oliver rather be somewhere else.

Daniel's goals posted over his isolette. The checked off items are what he has accomplished so far. The unchecked items need to be done before his release. Despite this hospital being associated with Harvard, spelling and grammar are not its strong suit. "Spells" are apnea episodes

Daniel continues to improve. He is out of the bililights and they are slowly weaning him off the extra heat in his isolette. By now, he should be in the standard nursery crib but he will remain in the special care area until his release as he needs monitoring. Shanna was provided a deluxe Medela breast pump to obtain milk to be brought to him when she is released today. Now he has periods in which he is awake and can look around at his family. He is nursing and not using the feeding tube. He has to learn to breathe and nurse at the same time. His O2 level dropped to 80 as she nursed yesterday setting off alarms (needs to be close to 100). I got to hold him yesterday for the first time. He has light blue eyes that underneath his skin folds look very much like his mother's pretty eyes. He also seems to have her full lips.

Oliver also got to see him for the first time but he was not too interested.

I've been reading up on his condition-transient tachypnea or wet lung. It should resolve quickly with no lasting effects except for a tendency for asthma. It is much more common in elective C-sections vs C-sections that were performed after the mom was in labor. Various hormones are released during labor that prepare the newborn's lung to absorb the fluid inside. Vaginal births help expel this fluid. Both times Shanna was in labor, I drove the 750 miles plus frantically to get there in time. Any delay frustrated me as Shanna was trying to hold off going to the hospital waiting for me. During Oliver's birth, she was already 4 cm and in active labor by the time we got to the hospital. Just as she was ready to push, it was discovered that Oliver was breech. I was angry that she went through all that pain needlessly but as it turns out, maybe it prevented Oliver from this mess Daniel is in (he was 2 weeks early). Maybe we should have taken our sweet time Tuesday instead of rushing to prevent Shanna from experiencing any more needless labor pains so more hormones would be released making life easier for Daniel.

The speed limits here are annoyingly lower than in MI so in our mad rush, we were checking for police. Fortunately Massachusetts seems to have a different use for their troopers: human traffic shields in construction zones. In Michigan in the few constuction zones the state can now afford, the construction zones are flanked by orange barrels with flashing lights. Here they use state troopers with blue flashing lights. In the first construction zone we encountered (fortunately in the westbound lanes), all the blue lights made us think there was a massive accident, but no, they were just flanking the workers. Since all the troopers seemed otherwise occupied working as human orange barrels, we felt free to speed in the eastbound lanes. Even minor construction sites on side roads seem to merit police presence as I have discovered during my runs. They do lots of the work in the middle of the night, so during Ramy's and my return from the hospital at 4 am, we saw plenty of blue flashing lights in their underground x-ways (Miss Dig). Glad they can afford this.

We also saw some Boston wildlife, massive raccoons galloping through their apartment parking lot.

Shanna is coming home today. The nurses at the hospital are very friendly and helpful but their accents crack me up. Oliver is pronounced "Olivah' in the local dialect. Bostonians haven't mastered the letter R yet. I should be used to east coast accents by now living with a New Yorker but Steve's accent only occasionally surfaces.