Laughter

Hopefully you read Nicki's post about an hour ago....if not, it would probably be a good idea to scroll down and look at the last one (called 'Yet another first") before you read this one, or it might not make sense.

The laughter started immediately when I got here tonight...9:00 is Melanies care time, dad shows up at 9:10 due to parking ramp difficulties which I wont vent about at this moment. The 1st words out of Meg's (Melanies nurse for tonight) mouth when I got in there was "you're late!"....I thought, "coulda started with a hello, hi, hola, como estas....something, but, you're late will do I guess"....little did I know what I walked in on. What dads job is when care time arrives is: #1 take temperature, #2 change diaper, and #3 weigh Melanie. I know this routine, however, when I got there, #2 was complete, and Meg......lets just say she's seen cleaner diapers. She went on about how bad this diaper was (looking back now, it wasnt any problem I was late, she just got stuck changing one of the dirtiest diapers of all time). Not quite believing her, I opened the trash can and saw the 'war zone'....I have never seen so many baby wipes covered in such a disgusting, attrocious looking, gut-turning smelling, foul odor in my life. This was unbelievable. Note to self....late is never ok, unless its fassionably late for a diaper change.

Anyway
It was my turn to feed Melanie tonight...I struggle with the idea, only for selfish reasons (if Im not allowed, or capable of feeding her, only Nicki can get up with her in the middle of the night :) Im kidding.

Anyway, Meg is Melanie's nurse tonight, and along with taking care of two children tonight, she had to train a dad on how to bottle feed a NICU baby....The thought going through my head "how hard can this be?, we have a potentially hungry baby, and a bottle partially full of milk...not so difficult...slam bottle in babys mouth and see if she drinks it...simple...Ive done this before" Ummmmmm, yeah....this is the point at which you get to feel bad for Melanie because she has a dad that was a bit, we'll call it, simple tonight :)

1st of all, if you looked at the pictures Nicki posted, holding this child is much different than the typical 8 1/2 pound babies we were used to....no problem, I can hold her differently. 2nd, there is a technique....This is where I ran into problems. I was supposed to take the bottle, and dab her lips to get her curious, and when she opened her mouth, insert the bottle....yeah...that was supposedly funny in these nurses eyes. I guess I looked like I was painting a barn with a paint brush. I wiped the niple back and forth, but she didnt open. So I did it harder and longer. This is when the bottle was removed from my hands very quickly, and I proceeded to watch what this "dabbing" looked like. When I dabbed, she didnt open...so I dabbed harder, and covered more surface area of the mouth. I didnt get to watch the video on this one...and it showed :) After a bit more laughter and a few times with Melanie forgetting the whole 'breath, suck, swallow, breath, suck, swallow' idea, we managed to try the burping technique. This is where Im a bit confused after reading Nickis post. One of three things must be different...either she didnt describe it the same way I did, she got to burp with a different technique than I did, or Meg wanted another laugh so she dreamt up some new way of burping. None the less, I got accused of a couple things...1st, I was apparently trying to set the speed record for this burp to come out. 2nd, I accused myself of beating our child because the way I had to hold and burp felt very wrong...how do I describe it...ummm....ok, I got it. It felt like trying to throw a baseball 80 miles an hour with my left hand in the strike zone. Me being right handed, it doesnt work, and looks pretty funny. We've all done it I think. We try hard, and our friends laugh at us. Burping Melanie, looked like the same scenario, with identical outcome...nurses laughing. Anyway, no burbs later, a few chokes and coughs, and I was told she was burning more calories trying to drink than what she was actually consuming, so we put her back in her bed. She did drink about 13 of her 27 mls, so, I guess we can call it a win. However, Meg proceeded to finish this bottle the tube fed way again. Oops, better luck next time I guess. I'll get to practice it again.

Thats the story for tonight. I think Melanie has settled down enough from the preceeding adventure that I might get to do a little skin to skin...but we will see.

This doesnt really qualify for a prayer request...so, I guess, just hope for Melanies sake that dad gains wisdom in this area, or the Westra family is gonna run into some problems.

Have a good night