Six days after his birth, we received an exciting call from the hospital: T.J. was being taken off of his ventilator. This meant many things, the most important of which was that we would now be able to hold our son. I skipped all of my college classes and we raced to the hospital to watch the doctors remove him from the ventilator. The next day he was moved into a nursery down the hall from the NICU. There, we were able to hold our little one for the first time. I cradled him in my arms, frightened and awed by his fragility. My wife rocked him for the next two hours, panicking every time one of his machines alarmed. He was squirmy and delighted in removing his leads, so the machines were beeping constantly. Still, all that mattered was being able to hold our son.
For the next three weeks, T.J. stayed in the nurseries next to the NICU. This was a much more ideal situation, since it was more quiet and personal. The nurses monitored his breathing: he was having frequent apneas and bradychardias, and was being given oxygen. Eventually, he would go on caffiene, which is used to stimulate the breathing. We received daily reports on his weight and length. He was being gavage fed breast milk, which caused him to gain weight, albeit slowly. It was a long three weeks in which we witnessed much growth, a decline in apneas and bradychardias, T.J.'s on-again-off-again relationship with supplementary oxygen, and much, much more. He was doing very well, impressing the nurses and the doctors.
After five weeks of travelling back and forth to the hospital every day, we were more than ready to bring our little boy home. The doctor assured us that as soon as T.J. was able to take a bottle or the breast at every feeding, he would be able to come home. My wife had been working with him for the past two weeks, trying to get him to breastfeed. It was proving a frustrating experience; we were wondering if he would ever be able to take his feedings properly. One day, she decided to give him a bottle and he downed the entire thing! Realizing that we had a "bottle baby" on our hands, we pressed forward. We were ecstatic--soon, he would be able to come home.
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