For those of you whom I don't talk to on a regular basis, I'm sorry for the delay in "what happens next?" from my last blog. After failing his first sleep test and having to spend three more days in the NICU, Will was given another sleep test. This one he also had a few apneas on, but because he was already on caffeine to stimulate his brain's signals to breathe, they decided to send him home anyway with an apnea monitor. This is hooked up to him and will alarm if his heart rate is not within normal bounds or he stops breathing for more than 20 seconds. He has not set it off once since he got it Tuesday. Once they discharged him from the hospital, we basically took the baby and ran. We knew they were going to be releasing him and we had some time before all the paperwork was done, so we went back to Tami and Ira's and loaded up the cars. Will was discharged at about 2 PM and we were in Julian by evening. Tami and Ira came with us, and Tami stayed with us until Saturday to help out. It's still so surreal to both me and Steve that Will is actually here, we're parents after the false starts and all the waiting. Even as I write this, Will is sleeping on my chest. I can't ever seem to put him down. Even when I have a lot of other things to do, I have a hard time laying him down in his playpen to sleep. He's always in such a deep sleep by that point that he has no idea he's not being held; it's all me. It's like I have to make up for the lost time when he was in the NICU. But it's also really beneficial to him to be close to us because he's a preemie. Our body heat means he doesn't have to work as hard to produce his own and he can work on growing. He doesn't sleep very well if he's a little cold. He squirms a lot and talks a lot. But when he's warm, he sleeps so soundly I sometimes check the monitor to make sure he's still breathing. That's definitely one nice thing about that monitor; it's a third pair of eyes on him. When we're sleeping, I can rest a lot easier knowing that the monitor will wake me up if something goes wrong with Will. He actually sleeps in the bed with us right now just because it's so bloody cold up here. We use a good space heater in our bedroom, but he still is too cold on his own. He's a really good sleeper (thank GOD!) as long as he's warm enough. He usually only wakes up twice a night to eat, and will go pretty much straight back to sleep when he's done. He's still got a little jaundice, so he gets to sun bathe every day in the window. We're raising SUCH a Californian; blond hair, blue eyes, goes tanning in the winter, is already addicted to caffeine and attached to his electronics (ie his monitor). Sigh. Oh well. Could be worse, I guess. Steve's a Californian, and he managed to turn out okay. :D One thing that's been happening pretty frequently the last day or two is he's spitting up a lot. Last night he spit up so much of his dinner I had to feed him again. It seems to be the worst when he's lying flat on his back. If he's even a little bit elevated or on his tummy (resting on our chests), then he won't spit up nearly as much. He's a stubborn burper, and that certainly doesn't help him any.

     So we brought Will home Tuesday evening, and Wednesday we got 16 inches of snow. Only appropriate for a meteorologist's son, right? Quite the grand homecoming. Of course, Will slept through most of it. One track mind, this kid. :D On the other hand, being a massge therapist's son, he also responds amazingly well to being touched. Almost without fail, if he has a need or is just being a little fussy, simply putting a hand on him will calm him down. I've even found that when he has the hic-ups during the night after a feeding, simply putting my hand on his chest and tummy will drastically reduce the amount of time he'll hic-up. And he responds really well to having his tummy massaged to help his little digestive track. He's a Vanderburg through and through, so he gets a lot of gas. Therefore, having his tummy massaged really helps him. He certainly can hold his own with the farting. Now we just need to teach him how to burp.