Bye-bye Courtesy Bed

Well, Siena is still in the ICU. But Sam is home. She had been discharged on Tuesday, but they allowed her to remain in a courtesy bed at the hospital. This set-up enabled her to drop off her milk (freshly pumped), visit Siena at her leisure, and be there for almost every feeding. They even gave her food. Basically, the nurses were not responsible for Sam anymore, and she could do anything she wanted. It was glorious.

It is hard being 30 minutes away from Siena. Leaving the hospital without our baby isn't what we had imagined, but hopefully she will be leaving with us on Sunday. In the meantime, we will get a good sleep tonight and get to the hospital for the 8:30 feeding tomorrow morning. Siena eats/sucks every three hours, so in between our times with her we will probably hang out at Uncle Richard and Aunt Robin's house in Sacramento - reading, watching TV, twirling our fingers until we can go back for the next feeding. That way we won't have to drive to and from the hospital endlessly. Thanks to them for the offer!

For Siena to escape from custody in the NICU, she will need to put on some pounds. Sam was encouraging her today by telling her that this is one of the few times in her life where she will be force-feeding to try to put on weight. She entered the world on Sunday at 6 lbs., 2 oz. and she is down to 5 lbs., 13 oz. She should start putting on weight soon, because Mom's milk is 1,000 times better than the sugar water she had been getting.

Nursing is going well. She usually spends 20ish minutes nursing and then supplements it with milk from the bottle. The biggest problem with Siena's nursing skills is that Sam makes her feel so comfortable that she likes falling asleep instead of sucking down the milk. It's a good start, though, and the skin-to-skin contact is good, at least.

Another reminder of how appreciative we are of Siena's improving health: one of Siena's neighbors in the NICU died this morning. He was born at 24 weeks and was the tiniest little guy I've ever seen. His legs were about the size of my pointer fingers and he couldn't have weighed much more than a pound. He was born the same day as Siena, and it was very sad to see his parents embracing in the hallway after we heard a "Code Red" call over the loudspeakers. The mom wasn't crying anymore, and the dad was doing his best to hold it together while comforting mama. We were told by our nurse that babies born that young usually can live for a few days (with serious mechanical help and the nutrients they have stored from their mom), but most can't sustain themselves for very long. Though I said hi to the parents a few times in the nursery over the past week, I had no idea what to say to them this morning. So sad!

On a cheery note, we enjoyed gifts from Bethany today, along with visits from Mom Sorbello ("Grammy/Bubba"), Cousin/Uncle Dan Pleau, and the Ganyo gaggle.

In sum, we were seriously bummed to leave Siena at the hospital, but we know she is in good hands. And we will be able to take her home soon, God willing.

We took a couple of fun videos tonight before we left, but our Flip Mino (video camera) seems to have fried. Mouth-to-lens resuscitation has not worked to this point... more still photos will be coming in the next installment.