Isaac Coleman's Blog

Everything you ever wanted to know about the goob man.

So yesterday, Isaac had his swallow test (technically a barium swallow). We’re told he drank the chalky goo down quickly and no leaks showed up on the x-rays.

We were then able to feed Ice Man a bit (15ml) of pedialyte every 3 hours. Shortly after his first bottle, he exploded with a humongous green poo.

This morning we were able to give him mother’s milk, and he’s having that every 3 hours now. You can tell he likes it much better, and falls asleep with a full belly.

He is not having any problems eating. He takes the bottle well (we’re using a slow-flow nipple in preparation for breastfeeding later). He sometimes has hiccups after eating, but not so much lately.

They also took his “chest tube” out today (which had drained fluid from his operation earlier, but hasn’t been doing much lately)… so we’re able to hold him. Isaac likes to be held. And we love holding him… even when he audibly poos in Mom’s arms. She is so calming!

Everything is going well. I think we could take him home now and take care of him as if we had gone home from birth with no problems (that’s just my opinion, not backed up by any doctors). We’re going to do our routine here for another couple weeks to make sure he’s in tip top shape and the surgery heals well.

Actually, the main thing we need to do is ween him off of all the comforts of the hospital and onto the comforts of home.

Now that he’s eating and being held, he doesn’t understand why that can’t happen whenever he wants. They’ve turned down his IV, so he’ll be feeling hunger in a different way (before he had an empty stomach, now he’ll have an empty stomach and low blood sugar, etc, like anyone else not on an IV).

With the chest tube out, he doesn’t need the comfy rolled up towels that were keeping him from rolling around. Those aren’t good to have in a crib unless you have a heart rate monitor on your baby. Kim talked me out of getting one for home. So he’ll have to learn how to sleep without pillows.

Thanks to the Ronald McDonald house, Kim and I are close enough to come over to see Isaac whenever we need to. We’re taking turns and trying to be there whenever he is eating or awake… just like at home.

We’ll keep you posted.