So my life these past few weeks has been a sort of roller coaster. I still can't believe he's here! It was really pretty quick and I am grateful for that. A nurse told me that for most first time moms labor is 14 hours from the time they are 4 cm. For me it was 8 hours! I was admitted around 5:30pm at 2-3 cm and he was born 8.5 hours later! The first few days after his birth were the hardest we've had so far. It was really difficult to see him in the NICU even though we knew he would get better. We were very happy to bring him home on Thanksgiving day.
Joshua is a very good baby. We actually get sleep at night! He has his last feeding around 10:30 and we go to bed around 11. Then he will sleep between 4 & 5 hours and then another 2-3 after his 3 or 4 am feeding. During the day he sleeps 3-4 hours at a stretch. Originally we were waking him to feed but we aren't doing that anymore. Yesterday we found out we have no reason to worry about him not getting enough to eat. He is already up to 8lbs 2 oz! They like to see babies get to their original birth weight by 2 weeks. He has surpassed his birth weight by 5 oz!
Unfortunately we found out he does have a blocked tear duct and possibly acid reflux. We noticed his eye was watering and that there was some discharge so we took him in to see the pedi. We found out that he was probably born with this as 6% of all newborns are. We have to massage the area between his eye and nose and put in eye drops 4x daily. He also has a sore throat which may be caused by the blocked duct or acid reflux. We are supposed to keep him upright after eating. We should also try not to make his diaper too tight or overfeed him and we should burp him as much as possible. All of these will help with spitting up and if it gets worse he may be put on baby zantac.
I've already started getting EOBs from the insurance company. I also got two summaries of charges from the hospital, one for me and one for Joshua. It cost $8k for me and $18k for him. They charged $6k for him being in the NICU where he was for only 36 hours! The special care nursery (intermediate ICU) was only $1500 and he was there for 3 days! I sure am glad we have insurance or we would be responsible for all $26k instead of just $3-4k.
