Tenderoni

There's a really great priest that makes rounds in the NICU. He wears a Yankees watch and hands out little stuffed animals to the babies. Every time he approaches me at Dezi's bedside he says the same thing, "Oh!! Desmond! It must be Desmond the 4th or at least the 3rd! That's too big of a name for a little baby." On Sunday he pointed to Dezi's toes and said, "When they start moving their toes that way it means they're getting ready for the front door."

The very next day, the nurses informed me that he was, in fact, going to graduate to the 8th Floor AKA the step-down NICU. It's quite peaceful there. There is way less beeping, no babies being shuffled to the operating room and no teary moms in hospital gowns. On this floor the babies are one step closer to going home. Dezi's last challenge is to take all of his feedings from a nipple (not mine but one one on a bottle.) He is still getting breast milk thru a tube and on Monday had a hard time eating from the nipple. Delores said that he was getting tachypneic while eating which means that his breathing was accelerating significantly while eating. The Dr. mentioned that it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for our boy to come home with a feeding tube. Her feeling is that he's doing too well in every other way to stay at the hospital, that it would be better for him to be home. Having a feeding tube would require that while Dezi continues practicing eating from a nipple and as long as he needs the feeding tube, Shane and I would be responsible for changing the tube weekly. It's entrance is in his nose and the tip is in the stomach, right, Dad? Sounds a little scary, eh? Anyhow, I want this kid at home. I want him home so much that it's starting to hurt a little bit. So I'll take him any way I can.

The GREAT news is that he did some good eating yesterday and even better eating today. Dolores excitedly said, "He wants to go home without that feeding tube!" So I'm hopeful that after a few more days of practice he will really get the hang of it and we can indeed bring him home tube free.

He's a little tenderoni and I wonder if I'll be forever cautious with him in life knowing the intense course he had in his first weeks. I worry that I'm about to create a little Mama's boy. When he's old enough and tells me not to be so protective I'll share this blog with him, give him a sense of what he came from.