Another day

Not a lot to report today. He didn't eat well last night, he was spitting up his bottle, which was slightly concerning since that can be a symptom of his Chiari Malformation being more serious. When we made it there this morning, we had unfortunately missed rounds and weren't able to ask the doctors about the spitting up and if it was a major concern. When we did see him, though, his dressing was off of his incision so we got to see it for the first time. I thought it looked great and much cleaner than I expected. Not a lot of bruising and not much redness. 

When it came time for his afternoon feeding, he took 8mL for us and then just fell asleep, but the next feeding he decided it was time and took 15mL and then for the one after that took 20mL in the blink of an eye. So it was great to see him eating and it was a little relief to not see any more spitting up. A Chiari that is symptomatic is rare, but when it is present, can bring a whole list of issues, so I was really hoping that a symptomatic Chiari was not going to be the issue of the spitting up.  Here's Mr. Thomas wide awake and eating today.

I forgot that when you have a newborn how much they change from day to day. We can already see his little personality coming through. He doesn't like to be on his belly...at ALL! When he is on his belly he tries to turn his head and roll over, but he isn't quite strong enough yet, so he ends up just burying his face in the pillow. He can't be on his back yet, due to his incision, and he can't be on his left side due to the external shunt, so he gets two positions - his belly or his right side. We switch between those two positions each 3 hours. When it was time to be on his belly today he just fussed and fidgeted and kept pulling at his wires and burying his face, until he finally got what he wanted and we gave in and moved him back to his side and then he immediately fell asleep...lesson learned, Thomas will communicate what he wants and probably get it! Which means that we are all in trouble!!