Today was another good day with our little man. Lincoln is up to 1770 grams...which I think is nearly 4 lbs. Now that he's not having his temperature controlled, we wrap him up like a burrito (Brent calls him a torpedo), and it's so adorable!
Today a harpist came in to the NICU and played for an hour or so! It was so cool! The heavenly, soothing music was perfect for all those little angels! I talked to her as she was leaving and found out that she comes a couple times a week (though she's been away on vacation for awhile, which is why I've not seen her before) and has been for years. She was born here at St. Joe's and in the NICU as an infant for 63 days! I was so impressed at her desire to continue to give back to the unit that gave her life! She's probably about my age.
I met with a lactation specialist today to get some tips on introducing Link to nursing. One idea she gave me was to soothe him with my pinky on the roof of his mouth rather than the binky. The binky is good because he practices sucking, but my pinky is better because he gets the smell and taste of me, plus I can get a feel for how he's developing his little mechanism. I'm getting frustrated because feeding is the only thing left he has to do...but it's the one that takes the longest, the most patience, and the most development on his part. Even some full term babies have serious problems with it. Let's hope that he's as precocious in this as in everything else.
It's funny....had Lincoln still been in the womb, he'd only be at 32 weeks now. I'd have 8 more weeks of pregnancy in front of me! I guess, if you try to count the blessings in a rough circumstance, one could look on the bright side and say "Hey, I gained 20 lbs in my pregnancy and lost 15 of them all in one day!" I suppose I would have had a lot more work to do had I given birth in October! Now, it's Link that has to do all the work, and sometimes I just feel so miserably guilty for that. I know I shouldn't. We have no known cause for his early birth. As far as we know, I did everything right. I ate well. I kept up mild exercise. I was getting good sleep and not stressing about anything (at least since school had been out) and I've never done drugs or alcohol a day in my life. One could theorize and wonder, and the doctors even did tests to see if it was an infection or something, but, at the end of the day, only the Lord knows the big plan.
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