Not a Morning Baby

James's day didn't get off to a great start; his tummy puffed up again and he was throwing up a bit, so they stopped his feedings this morning. However, just like a week or so ago, after he burped and they pulled some air out of his tummy (with his feeding tube), his girth went down again. (Unlike last week, the spit-up was a brown color, which they think might be old blood from some previous stomach irritation.) And they took a belly X-ray, which we were told looked even better than last week's (which was better than the previous one), so that's an encouraging sign of progress.

He also had an especially high blood pressure reading in the morning, but it turns out that the eye drops they use for the eye exam (which he also had today) can temporarily raise blood pressure, so they think that was the reason.

By the time I arrived in the afternoon, James seemed to be feeling fine. He was wide awake and enjoying his music and mirror. They probably would have restarted his feedings, but they were planning to stop them at midnight anyhow in preparation for the surgery, so they decided to just leave him alone -- they didn't want to take the chance of causing him any more stress. I held him for a while and he was sleeping nicely when I left.

As far as we know, he's still first on the schedule tomorrow. However, it's going to be a lengthy surgery, perhaps as long as three or four hours, so don't worry if there isn't an update until later in the afternoon tomorrow (or evening, if we aren't able to get on the hospital computers).

We got the hospital portion of the bill for Matthew's NICU stay today. This includes room charges, pharmacy, labs, and radiology, but not any doctor's fees, which have been billed separately. The total is more than our mortgage! Thank goodness for insurance.