McBaby's McBlog: Movin on up, to the south side

It was really hard to get good pix of bath time. McMama was pretty excited though.

We stuck around a little later tonight to learn how to give Jackson a bath and were glad we did. He gained two ounces for the second day in a row, bringing him up to 3lbs. 15oz. We'll have a 4lb. baby by the weekend.

I stayed in the room most of the day to get caught up on some homework so Jenny got to hear most of his other good news first hand. We haven't completely decided how excited to be about this, but he's going to be moved to a different area of the NICU known as "south," probably tomorrow morning. Funny that they call it south since it's about 10 feet farther south than he is now. They sold this as a positive thing for him. Apparently this is where the all-star preemies go.

It is a lot different than where he is now. For one thing they only allow six babies at south, which means he will be receiving more direct care. Not that there was anything wrong with his care where he has been the last two weeks, in fact we thought it had been phenomenal. The new area is one open room, so the nurses will have a close eye on him and be able to get right to him if they should need to. Hopefully they don't.

We've grown pretty comfortable where he is now and are not sure about the transition to what is a smaller area that seems a little less high tech. On the positive side, it doesn't have to be as high-tech because these babies don't need as much special care.

Jenny got to talk to the discharge nurse today and had a lengthy report for me of the things Jackson will have to do before he can go home. The positive that I took from the requirements was that there is no minimum time. We had originally been told that babies are never sent home before they reach 36 weeks gestation, and this may prove to be true with him, but there is nothing that says he has to wait that long. He has to wait two more weeks to get his initial vision test, but it is possible that he could pass all his other tests by then or shortly after. We aren't expecting this by any means, but it was nice to know that there is at least a possibility of him coming home three weeks from now.

Visitors will be limited
Because his new area is smaller and farther from the NICU waiting room (pretty far actually), we are going to have to limit visitors even more than we have already. In addition to the smaller space and distance to the waiting area, the nurses have started warning us about RSV season. A March of Dimes volunteer told us tonight that when her baby was at the NICU during RSV season, they didn't allow any visitors other than the baby's parents and siblings. We're not going to be that strict yet. We haven't decided what limited visitors is going to mean yet, but please understand that this new area is going to make it much more difficult to accommodate guests.