Tuesday/Wednesday...

I have to be honest. I haven't been posting on my blog because I am trying to decide who I am writing this blog for. Is it for me? Is it helping me cope? Is it for all our friends and family? Or am I just throwing all of my emotions and feelings out on the internet for people to read and think "oh what a sad story" and we become more like fish in a fish bowl? I think I feel this way because I know many "friends" that are reading this blog but not once have I seen a comment from them, an email or a phone call. (Sorry this is just how I am feeling) I haven't completely come to an answer on this yet but I have come to another possibility of the reason for this blog. This blog may help other families that find they are in the same situation. I have found a couple blogs that I have stumbled upon and find myself crying but yet thankful that I came across it. So for this reason I think I will continue the blog but maybe not everyday... for now.

Tuesday was a very hard day for me. It was nice because I was able to stay at the house in the morning to kind of put some things away at the house, do laundry, dishes, clean out the fridge (man there was a lot of spoiled things in there!) and just try to have a half normal day. Of course I headed to the hospital in the early afternoon. Now I know that there are a few nurses reading my blog and I am totally ok with that. However, it has had me pondering if I should write about this next thing but anyone who knows me knows I don't hold back a lot so here it goes. Tuesday morning Mark called the nurse to see how Ethan was doing. He was doing worse than he was in Seattle. So this got us talking and thinking. We realized that in Seattle they had Ethan swaddled nice and tight the last few days that we were there and he was doing awesome. So we decided to ask the nurse if they could do that here since it seemed to help him in Seattle. She told me no. The reason for this is because they can't cover the temperature probe that is connected to the machine and is stuck to his belly. Well this really didn't make sense to me or Mark. So I was a little upset with it. I waited until the next nurse came on (which I was glad to see it was a nurse I have come to like) and asked her about it. She said that we could try it but it couldn't cover his temperature probe. Yeah, at least she is willing to try it. So we swaddled his bottom half and he seemed to do really good for the rest of the night.

So Wednesday morning I set my alarm so that I could call the same nurse to see how he did throughout the night. She said he had a really good night and that they were able to keep him swaddled. Great! So I decided to go to the hospital right away so that I could make sure he was still swaddled when I got there since I knew the nurse who told me no would be his nurse again. Well he was swaddled and he was doing really good. She said to me "yeah the blood we gave him yesterday must have done it for him." Well I am not a nurse or a Dr. so I don't know if it was the blood or the swaddle that made him do well but I do know from a little research that swaddling is GREAT for newborns and if it is great for newborns why wouldn't it be awesome for preemies that have to work that much harder! So he was swaddled up until 4pm when I fell asleep for his cares only to wake up to her telling me the temperature probe was saying that he was cold so she had to un-swaddle him. Ahhh so much for sleeping I guess. I just don't understand how Seattle could have no problems with swaddling him but Great Falls does. She told me that it has to do with hospital policy. Well, this is my baby and after they were telling me long term side effects that may OR may not happen (which is probably obvious to most of you as I have read about it but since no one mentioned it to me about OUR baby I put it to the back of my mind) I feel like we need to be more involved in how he is cared for.