Friday, March 30, 2007

Friday update on Trystan

Today was a good day. Trystan seems to be doing quite well. He was eating today! He had a colostomy last Saturday, and had not eaten since early Friday. Actually, if his condition had been caught earlier, he would not probably have eaten at all, as there was nowhere to let the waste out from. In any case, they had placed a tube down his nose and into his stomach to suck out bile and meconium that was coming back up. On Tuesday, the nurse had removed the suction tube, and Tuesday night they attempted to feed him a small amount. One unfortunate side effect of having surgery where your intestines are handled is that the normal peristalsys (sp?) can get halted or reversed temporarily--lucky me, I got a small taste of this myself with the C-section. Basically, it takes a couple of days for food to move, and in the correct direction. So Tuesday night, Trystan threw up bile and had his suction tube replaced. Thursday the tube was back out again, and mid-afternoon, we attempted to feed him again.

Trystan had breastmilk fresh from the tap for the first nearly 24 hours of his life. Thursday afternoon, the doctors ordered that he try pedialyte in a bottle first. If you've never tasted the "unflavored" pedialyte, my husband describes the taste like this: wet down your concrete patio and then lick it. Tasty, huh. Then add it to a bottle with a rubber nipple (a "disposable" rubber nipple at that), and you are not talking about a tasty treat, especially for someone who has only ever tasted sweet breastmilk. He made the funniest faces and even gagged at the taste of the pedialyte before finally taking about half an ounce. Luckily, it stayed down and he got breastmilk (still in a bottle) 3 hours later. Today I fed him two of his feedings of breastmilk from bottles, and decided that he really isn't that thrilled with the rubber nipples. He also remembers that I nursed him, and I'd have to cradle him in the nursing position, wait for him to root on my breast, and then slip in the bottle to get him to take it from me--apparently the nurses have had a bit better time (they are also much better at bottle feeding than I am--I breastfed Charlotte for 19-20 months, but left the bottles for other people). The third feeding, the surgeons had said that they didn't care whether he took a bottle or breastfed, as long as he was eating and it stayed down, so I nursed him--he was quite happy to latch and eat his fill with no reluctance. The surgeon had not written anything down, and the nurse was somewhat skeptical (I think this one likes to do everything exactly by the book--not a bad trait), but he ate and we were both happy. I just hope he isn't too upset with the nurses tonight when they offer him more bottles.

I also got to give Trystan a bath today--they've been doing it at night after we leave, but he had not gotten one last night. He had his regular newborn hearing test, and passed. They started him on oral amoxycillin, which is a preventitive measure. On Monday, they will do a dye test to check out the true state of his kidney function (they've been working so far, but with his abnormalities, they're concerned that parts of the system may not work as well or things could flow backwards). I also got in plenty of snuggle time, and got to hold and interact with him during a long span of time where he was wide awake and checking out the room.

Oh yeah, and I drove myself today. I had a repeat C-section (might post a more detailed birth story later), and I've been fine without the percoset (narcotic pain reliever) for the last two days. So I was safe to drive today. I'm actually feeling pretty good--my recovery has been much quicker than with Charlotte, but I've had reason to walk a lot more, which is probably helping quite a bit. My tummy is still saggy and smooshy and I do feel the incision, but it is much less painful and/or annoying than last time--my doctor's use of sutures instead of staples helps a lot--the staples were in for nearly a week last time and themselves were very annoying.

Maybe next time I update, I'll include a photo. He's really a cutie if I do say so myself.

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