#bedrestproblems: Baby Jail

Charlie's 5 star room with a water view has now become Alcatraz. He has outgrown his bassinet and has moved into baby jail. He even has the stripes and an ankle bracelet to complete his criminal look. p.s. I'm still on the hunt for an orange baby jumpsuit for the full effect.

This place is starting to feel more like prison for me and Aaron too. After 13 1/2 weeks of living in a hospital, I am officially over it. Charlie is still a happy camper and growing chins by the minute (he's now 8lbs 13oz!), but its been a rough week emotionally as we're going on almost 8 weeks in the NICU and wondering why we're still here. Its especially confusing when all the doctors have been telling us that he's doing great, its just a feeding thing and every baby is just different. Well, we finally asked the doctors and staff to sit down with us so we could ask some more questions and got some answers that were frankly surprising. Turns out that Charlie's lungs are more premature than a "typical" preemie born at his age because he was without fluid for so long after my water broke. So while we are here because of feeding, its his immature lungs that are making it so challenging. They also told us his lungs will never be equivalent to a child born at full term which the doctor explained by saying "he'll never be Michael Phelps". Well Dr. Doom, we don't care because Michael Phelps is a douche and Charlie will also never have arms freakishly long enough to do that gross back slapping move- thank goodness. Sorry to be crass but if you tell a mama bear that her baby can't do something, you better watch out! We did ask if he could run varsity track in college like his dad and they said yes. We forgot to ask if he could play high school tennis and win the "sportsmanship" award like his mom so the jury is still out on that one. They also told us it will take a year or more for his lungs to catch up which means no flights, no daycare, no crowded places and very strict screening of visitors for a year because even catching the slightest cold could be a pretty scary setback.

While its great to have answers now, it felt like a slap in the face to hear all of this for the first time and this far into our journey. The next year of our life will be totally different than we expected. We assumed that we'd need to take things slow but surely we thought we could take him to St. Louis to see Aaron's family for the 4th and to his first auburn football game in the fall. Not even an occasional boozy brunch on the weekends? Thats question #1 for his first pediatrician appointment. I guess we'll stick to walks and hikes in the summer with our bubble boy. This kid is already so Seattle, I'm seriously questioning whether he is mine.

A lot of you have been so nice and have asked about coming to see Charlie. There are no hard and fast rules that the doctors are giving us about that. They just toId us that we have to live our lives and do what feels right. I'm not sure what that means yet for us. I'm dying to introduce Charlie to all of you but most of you know that Aaron and I both suffer from chronic paranoia. Once we get home I know we will want visitors but we'll need to wait until flu season is over and take it slowly. I'll apologize now if we bathe you in sanitizer as you walk in the door! I'm sure we'll become less crazy as time goes on so maybe we'll even be up for some al fresco dining this summer. We can always dream...

As for when our new life outside of the NICU will start, the doctors are basically fine with us going home at any time but it means going home with the feeding tube. At first we said no way because we would have to be able to thread it through his nose and into his stomach by ourselves if he pulls it out which seemed terrifying. But knowing that we need to take things slow to let Charlie's lungs develop and let him make feeding progress on his own timeline, the best place for all of us is home so we can get on with our lives. Right now we are looking at being discharged in the next 2 weeks so in the meantime we're working with a pulmonologist to see what we can do to help Charlie make safe feeding progress. One thing we're trying is giving him a little oxygen to see if it helps with feeds which is why he has his nasal cannula back on in some of the pics. If it seems to do the trick we may go home with that as well.

Thanks for bearing with me through this long post. You're almost to the picture portion! But first, we have to tell you how grateful we are for the continued support and encouragement. We've needed it now more than ever. We know we'll get through this and will be so happy when we can finally bring our little man home!

Charlie's first birthday is going to be a rager and you're all invited!