Saying Goodbye

Last night was the visitation for Jen. It was beautiful. There were so many people there to pay their respects. We waited in the reception line for 1.5 hours before being able to talk to Boris and the rest of their family. By the time we had gone through, the line hadn't shortened one bit! What an amazing stamp of Jen's affect on those around her. She was loved by many, and she would have been overwhelmed with the love and support surrounding her family last night. Services are today.
Life forces us to go on, and on we will. As will Boris and his family. As for ours, and our little Angel named Colin, he's doing well. Not that we haven't had some little twists since my last blog entry. First, we thought it was cute that Colin was so ravenous when it came time to eat. Our naive observation was that he was a hungry man. Well, he was, but that's not the whole story. One of his astute nurses wondered about whether Colin was becoming hypoglycemic (low blood sugar). Sure enough. In the previous few days, Colin's blood sugar was actually a little high. That was one of the reasons the doctors decided to take him off the more rich hind milk he was on. Back on regular milk, his sugar dropped. Too much. I was thinking, "uh-oh, what now"? Turns out this may not be such a bad thing. Colin is using up his sugar supply because he's entering a growth period and the little man is needing all those extra resources to get bigger. As a result, they've increased his fortifier to 27 calories (from 24). This has seemed to work well as his sugar has stabilized over the last 24 hours. Great catch by the nurse!
Chunkies is also up to 3 pounds, 9.4 ounces. With the increase in calories, and the fact that he's really doing well on his bottle feedings, he'll be knocking down 4 pounds in no time. And with this weight, he's also maintaining his own body temp better. He's just about reached room temp in his isolette - probably another couple of days or so - and then he'll graduate into a crib!
One thing that is for certain, determined just in the last couple days, is that Colin will require hernia surgery before he comes home from the hospital. Right now, he's too small for surgery and so the doctors want to wait until he reaches the 1800-2000 gram mark before cutting on the Crown Jewel-area to fix the hernia. Ouch. Son, all I have to tell you is you won't remember any of this when you get older. Better to have the Jeweler do his work now than when you're an adult. It's painful stuff - or so I've been told. When that day comes (in 2-3 weeks), we'll have the paci in hand ready to comfort you. Be strong, Little Buddy. May the force be with you and your little boys ;-)