Counting the Days

So this is Joy's 5th day. She has had visitors almost everyday (not including me) which has been awesome. She really does appreciate the company and chatting. For the most part Joy seems pretty positive with 5 weeks to go (not including C-section recovery). I've noticed she is more bubbly when she gets a pleasant chatty nurse. She really liked one of her nurses this week. It was a bit of a slow day so the nurse came in and chatted about stuff with Joy and walked the hall a little with her.

The NSTs have been going well. The girls frequently have hiccups and are very active for their age. They are already showing that stubborn, over achieving, can't sit still Stryker DNA off :). They are going to need it too.

We took a tour of the ICN (Duke's NICU). It was frightening to see just how small these babies will be. There was one born at 32 weeks which was just about 3.5 lbs. We were allowed to see a 26 week baby from a slightly closer distance. I swear their foot was about half or 3/4 the size of my thumb. We couldn't get a good look because the baby wasn't ours. Oh well, you have to respect that.

I asked about benchmarks. Yet again I got the answer I was expecting, but not the answer I wanted. It still looks like they will likely be there until their gestational age which is about Labor Day weekend. Let's also hope they come home at the same time or we will be very busy since we are not allowed to bring the other one in if their sister is still at the hospital. That will take some coordination and baby sitting plans.

So far the worst things are that Joy has to keep on her toes with the meds. She does not have many and nothing too important. So far it just seems that she has to remind them of a vitamin or two. The biggest issue seems to be the hospital cuisine aka "dog food". The selection is blah and many items are not good for a pregnant woman who is following many of the diet rules of what to eat. For instance tuna fish sand salad (high mercury), cold cut sandwiches etc. I don't think she has had an order yet come completely correct. They either forget items or bring the entirely wrong plate. The waffles were like bricks, the pot pie was more like a teacup pie, the oatmeal is in editable, and for some reason they can't remember to bring her a snack menu to save their life. Sadly this leads to some frustration. Joy said yesterday she feels like she needs to go down there and organize the food folks. I guess that is the customer service manager coming out who thrives on making things more efficient. At least it would giver her a job right?

Well, I guess I can't think of much else to say. If you plan to visit some fruit like precut watermelon, grapes, and fruit in general are good. If she has a heads up a meal from anywhere but Duke would be good too. If all else fails, just bring yourself.

Overall, Joy's spirits seems to still be up and she seems to be bubbly despite the 5 hours of sleep a night. A few nurses may try to sneak her a better bed if they can. It is just hard to move things around like that. They just don't have good places to store extra beds so it is really hard to accommodate a better bed.