Are we there yet????

It's been a week since I have posted and we are starting to get phone calls and emails wondering what is wrong :) Everything is fine, Jeremy has been sick with a cold and I have been down at the hospital ALOT this week. Aiden is doing just fine although he does have some new issues that have come up. He does have a hernia on the left side of his abdomen that will most likely get fixed after he comes home.

He had a routine blood and urine test done earlier this week and it showed some elevated levels and a possible infection beginning so they did some further cultures on him. He has been acting fine and has actually been more alert than usual so I was pretty sure nothing was wrong, however one of his test came back showing a bacteria in his urine that is fairly resistant to antibiotics. The doctors are seeing no sign that he is actually "infected" with this bacteria but rather he is carrying it. They are not going to treat him for it but, since it is something that can be passed to other babies poor little Aiden is now on lockdown and we have to wear a plastic gown and gloves and were told we could not touch him. They will keep checking his urine to see if it goes away or becomes an infection, but most likely he will just keep carrying it and we will have to have restrictions for the rest of the time he is in the hospital (5-6 more weeks).

Naturally, the no touching rule is not sitting well with us. The plastic gown is like a heater and Aiden was slipping around while we were trying to hold him. The plastic gloves were the worst part. Normally, we touch Aiden's head to comfort him, but now instead of being comforted, he squirms and cries. When we would touch his hand with our fingers he would wrap his hand around us, now he pulls away. He is obviously feeling the gloves and has associated that with nurses and painful tests and procedures. I talked to the doctor this morning and expressed my concerns and unhappiness with the new rules, I don't want to spread anything, but at the same time WE HAVE TO TOUCH OUR BABY so that we can continue bonding - it is hard enough to bond with him in the hospital without adding this, too. He needs loving touch and not just clinical touch and I don't really understand if it isn't a bad enough bacteria to treat him for it why we can't just wash our hands often and before we leave his area to go home. So, we came to a compromise and we don't have to put on the gloves and gown when we are doing kangaroo care or if I am doing recreational breastfeeding. So we decided we will just do both those things often :)

Sorry about the rant - I think Jeremy and I have both come down with a severe case of hospital-itis or iwanttotakemybabyhomenow-itis. It's been 77 days of being there everyday and It's hard to see other babies that were born after Aiden get to go home. Especially now that all the other parents see Aiden's contamination signs and look at us like he has the ebola virus or something.

Anyway, other than that he is tolerating his feedings good enough and is now at 3 lbs. 15 oz. - almost to 4 lbs! The doctors have called the surgeon to get a date and time for his surgery, probably next week some time. They have also been able to reduce his oxygen flow this week from 4 liters to 3 liters per minute. They will try to reduce it again this week. After his surgery he will just need to work on bottlefeeding and steadily gaining weight so he can come home. Clearly, we can't wait for the day he leaves the hospital to come home with us!

The other thing is that we are not allowed to take our stuff into "the contamination zone" which means no camera, no pictures. I am going to try to sneak it in, but I might not be able to post new pictures on the blog regularly :(