Last week marked 4 weeks that Isaiah has been off of his c-pap. Happily, the tape and tubes are just a memory right now (and they will hopefully stay that way).
Look at how Isaiah has changed in just 3 short months! My goodness!
As the last 4 weeks went by, Dave and I got more and more itchy in our house. We started going out more with Isaiah, we started taking him out to the backyard.
We've started living...really living...our life as a family.
We've lost a lot of the fear we had for him (or we've learned to face it, I'm still trying to decide on that). His lungs are stronger now. His bones are stronger now. He's basically sleeping through the night (besides a bottle or two).
Did you know he still had night nursing? For 6 months, Isaiah had night nursing.
Had.
I contacted Isaiah's doctors who both agreed that we could move on from having the night nurses for now. (They say "for now" until Isaiah has his sleep study at the end of this month. If we find out he's having issues while breathing, they may recommend he go back to wearing the c-pap at night, which would bring back the opportunity to have nursing if we want it.)
We had a team of 3 nurses who very much cared about Isaiah.
The nurses took care of Isaiah out in the living/dining area of our house. Isaiah slept out there every night while they hung out near by. They made notes and listened to his lungs every hour, but honestly as time has gone on, they were all noting basically the same thing, Isaiah is progressing.
They changed his mattress out when he woke, changed his diaper, and partied with him during his 3am parties after I fed him bottles.
For the most part, they treated him like part of their family, some even like their own child, and we are forever grateful.
It's time though. It's time for us to be a family. On our own. It's time to finally experience new parent nights (we were spoiled with being about to sleep through Isaiah's 3am parties).
We ended night nursing one week ago.
Isaiah now sleeps in his room at night. If he wakes at a crazy hour (5:30am on Friday. Seriously, kid?), we can now bring him into our room and cuddle with him while he giggles. (I guess we could have done that while the nurses were here, but our bed isn't quite that big for all of that cuddling.)
We so appreciated everything Isaiah's nurses did for us. (How many first time parents can say they slept through the night for the first 4 months of their baby's life? Yes, you probably want to stab me for that...but it was a perk of having the nurses watching over Isaiah and his eating through that tube).
We may or may not have their contact info so we can keep in touch and share pictures and exciting moments as Isaiah grows. ;-)
Coincidentally, as we said goodbye to nursing, we received a letter in the mail (along with a phone call on the same day) from the company that supplied us with Isaiah's feeding tube needs. We stopped ordering months ago but held onto the supplies "just in case". (Remember, I have that "if we have it, we won't need it" mentality....even though I can't wait to get it out of my house!) Well, they were calling to collect their machine. They sent us a box to return everything in via UPS.
This aspect of Isaiah's life, his eating through a tube, Dave and I having to place that tube... can now just be a memory.
Thank goodness.
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