April 14th and 15th - A Change of Plans

Tuesday morning I was up bright and early to get down to the hospital at 8 to feed Ryan. We were also waiting to hear the results of his latest bili level. When I got there one of the doctors was reviewing Ryan's chart and writing his orders for Ryan for the day. We were hoping to hear that Ryan would be going home the next day, but the doctor said that he couldn't go home until at least Thursday! While he was telling me this Ryan was crying ready to eat so I didn't question him on why he had to stay so long, I thought his bilirubin level must still be high so he would have to stay on the lights longer, but when I got back from nursing Ryan his light blanket was gone. I asked his nurse his bili level and she told me it had dropped back down to 10. Now I was really confused on why he had to stay.

After talking to Eric and my mom, I decided to have my mom come down with me at noon and find out why Ryan had to stay so much longer if he didn't have anything wrong with him anymore. We finally found out that this NICU has a policy that a baby has to stay for 5 days after their last oxygen desaturation, and since Ryan needed a small amount of oxygen on the 11th after getting his first feeding he would have to stay until Thursday the 16th :(

So the rest of the 14th and all day on the 15th I spent driving back and forth to the hospital to be there for all of Ryan's feedings except for the two in the middle of the night.