Slow Progress and Cautious Optimism

I sometimes get so frustrated by these buzzwords or doctorspeak. This is just what we have to deal with as parents of such a young preemie. It's Tuesday again, so we got the Monday cranial ultrasound results. What we heard were the words highlighted in this post – slow progress and cautious optimism. The great news is that there is progress from last Monday's ultrasound to yesterday's; some resolution of the clots from the brain bleed and again no marked swelling or hydrocephalous. It takes time for these things to resolve, and longer time to see what kind of impact they will have on our son's future. Mom and I braced for the worst and got a glimmer of goodness, so today is better then last Tuesday. So we will take slow progress and cautious optimism over last week's update; which was no change.

I also read our preemie book, which I'm going to plug right now because it's been a wealth of very good information for us and I recommend for any parent that may wind up in a similar circumstance. The book is called The Essential Guide for Parents of Premature Babies by Dana Wechsler Linden, Emma Trenti Paroli and Mia Wechsler Doran, M.D. Other then the brain bleed we were also worried about the little guys respiratory progress. It seems every time they try to wean him off the ventilator he does good for awhile but then falls back and needs more oxygen. Well the book explains that this is really common, since their really isn't any true non-invasive test to see how well a baby respiratory system is that the only way to see how they will do is to lower their settings and monitor. I also read that even though his oxygen settings have been higher lately, they still aren't even considered high compared to other premature babies.

Finally he is still tolerating his feeds pretty well. Sometimes he hasn't digested all of the milk, but overall he's getting it all down. I think Baker has his own time schedule and even though he's been eager to get out of the hospital, he's going to eat on his schedule not the doctor's… J I'm afraid he may have inherited the stubbornness that seems to run in my family. He's got his way, and that IS the way for him despite what the doctors think…