Part 7 – Hospital Tests and Getting Dressed
On 28th September 2012, after nearly 7 weeks in an incubator, Bruce was moved to a hospital cot. When your a parent of a NICU baby, this is definitely one of the biggest milestones. My first thought….”we’re almost home.” I knew we still had a way to go but in my eyes, this definitely took us over the half way mark.
He looked so peaceful. More than that, I felt closer to him than ever. There was no incubator surrounding him, no plastic wall between us. He was right there, and I could pick him up without asking a nurse for help. That may seem like a strange thing to say but when your baby is in an incubator, you don’t have the freedom to pick them up yourselves. Of course, I still had to be mindful that Bruce tired easily and time out of the cot had to be balanced with lots of rest. The cot had a heated mattress in too as he was still too little to regulate his body temperature effectively.
What also took me by surprise that day was the fact that he was dressed! Yes, dressed! My baby had worn nothing but a nappy / diaper for the past 7 weeks and here he was, dressed! I admit, my heart did sink a little at the same time. I wanted to be the one who got to dress him in his first outfit. That thought hit me quite hard but I had to shake it off quickly. As a neonatal mum, you hold onto every little positive for dear life and this day, was a huge positive.
We’d had so many donations from amazing family and friends, and their wider circles who’d heard about our little warrior. At the time, I think he had a bigger wardrobe than I did! (probably still does actually). Though some things, even in a premature baby size just completely drowned him.
On 4th October 2012, Bruce was moved from high dependency to the special care unit in the early hours of the morning. Yet another huge milestone for this little trooper! As well as learning to regulate his body temperature and increasing his intake of oxygen, Bruce still had lots of tests to do. The doctors were keen to make sure that he had no problems with his hearing so a thorough test was arranged to complete this.
Bruce had put on almost 2lb in his first 8 weeks and had progressed so much. He weighed 4lb 5oz and amazed me everyday. Although progress on his oxygen dependency wasn’t really changing, the outlook was looking more and more positive everyday. He was almost there. We were exactly 1 month away from what was his actual due date. The doctors had always told us to look to this date as an approximate time of when he may come home.
Almost there my tiny toes xxx
