Uggh

This morning's report from the NICU wasn't very comforting. James was a bit fussy for the night nurse, and early this morning he spit up a few times. Not a lot, but this are usually James' early signs that he isn't feeling well. His stomach girth had also increased by 3 cm (1.5 inches; from 37 to 40 cm -- this is a lot!) in the past 24 hours, although after his nurse sat him up and he burped, it went back down a bit to 37.5 cm and he seemed more comfortable. (Although this is definitely better, we're pretty sure there's more going on than just some air in the belly -- we wish we had a problem simple enough to be solved by burping!)

And, he didn't produce any stool in the most recent irrigation (though he did have some yesterday evening). So, they have stopped his feedings for a while, they are increasing his dose of a medication intended to improve his intestinal motility (it also reduces reflux), and they are doing another belly x-ray. Naturally, all of this is happening as the weekend approaches.

We're going to go in this afternoon, and hopefully we'll be able to have a conversation with the doctors and see where we go from here.

(To fill in the "not much news" from yesterday -- he had a session with the occupational therapist, working on hamstring stretches and turning his head to the left, since he tends to favor his right, and he also had a session with speech therapy. He was sleeping on his side in his bouncy seat all snuggled up when I (Melanie) arrived -- very cute! And his bilirubin levels had gone down a little, from 7 to 6. Of course, the normal range is from 0 to 0.3, so they're still high, but at least had moved in the right direction.)