If you’ve ever been pregnant, perhaps you’ve signed up for some sort of week by week “updates”. Rather than requiring that you turn the pages of What Can Go Wrong To Expect When Expecting, the virtual world has hopped on the bandwagon of wading you through the week by week waters of your pregnancy. Whether it’s Babycenter.com, thebump.com or whattoexpect.com, you can customize your very own account and see what “your baby” is up to at its current gestation.
You know what those websites don’t do? They don’t do any sort of fancy Back to the Future business like hover boards or holograms. So it’s not as though they can sense that you no longer have that babe in your belly. I know, ridiculous, right? Okay, I jest, I jest. But the reality of the entire set-up is that it is all based on averages so your updates are obviously not perfectly suited to your “actual” babe. And so they could definitely be “off” on how big your babe is. And they definitely won’t have a clue if your babe arrives prior to its due date. So as I opened my email inbox this morning, I was greeted with the subject line: Your Baby: 35 weeks.
And it gave me a little chuckle.
According to Babycenter, if Harrison were still in utero, still in the belly — on the Brehm — than they predict he would weigh around 5 and a quarter. About the size of a honeydew.
But our Harr Bear. He is not a honeydew. He is not yet to the 5 pound mark. Currently, he’s a honeydidn’t. A honeydidn’t-quite-make-it-to-35-weeks-so-he’s-not-what-you-guesstimate-he-is.
But what Harrison is is continuing to do well. Not spectacular and not poorly, but well.
So here’s the long-winded {I’m not a dr.-nor do I play one one TV- in fact I’m just a mom-but I am going to try to explain to you} explanation of his current condition. All in all, he continues to be a healthy little lad. In NICU speak, he’s not had any “alarms” for awhile, which, we love. He’s still hanging out in the growers and feeders room. Or as I like to call it, the zoo. Because we get a lot more traffic than we did in our last diggs. And all of the passers-thru like to take looksies at the babes. And likely due to my social nature, I rather enjoy the extra foot traffic. We have roomies… One set of twins {our second set. Both of whom are adorbs} and one singlet. But the twins are movin’ on up and out {one up, one out} as of today. Harrison is tipping the scales at 3 lbs 9 oz. He still gets all of his feeding through a tube {this is called gavage feeding} but also gets to try breast or bottle feeding 4 times a day. But mostly, one feeding is really enough to completely tucker him out. Through his tube he gets the Cutie Pie Cocktail, a mixture of breast milk {which I am considering selling on the black market if he continues to take one ounce every time I am pumping 3-5}, alimentum {liquid gold formula} as a fortifier and protein {for brain development}. Our little Harr Bear is proving to be quite the spitter, or vomiter, {I know. You’re shocked. An Ashli and Adam Brehm-made-man who spits. Crazy.} and a few of his nurses have been impressed by his abity to throw a fit on a couple of occasions. And let me just tell you that the fact that trained professionals appreciate my babe’s ability to twist and shout provides quite a bit of sanity for me after having felt like I was going crazy during both Barrett and Jonah’s infant months {which, I know, I never mention}. Up until today, H diggity dogg was getting a little Starbucks fix each day. Like reallllly expensive Starbucks. Okay, not really Starbucks, but he was getting a “hit” of caffeine to stimulate his breathing. And as of today, he’s going cold turkey in an effort to help reduce his spits {voms}. He is still in his superhero chamber and won’t transition to a crib until he is 1900 g which will be a bit as he is currently 1625 {Most NICU babes gain about 200-250 g a week when they are rockin’ and a rollin’… which he’s not exactly doing}. So he has a bit of time before we talk about crib transition and then heading home. Currently, the docs are hinting that we will have about 3-4 weeks ahead of us which would put us past “term” and would have him pretty well prepped for landing.
So sadly, Babycenter, Harrison, our 35 weeker today AND 3 week old tomorrow, is not the size of a honeydew. He is, instead, our snuggly, adorable, charming little jicama. Who is in very safe hands and many hearts. And continues to grow, grow, grow. Our little Harrison honeydidn’t.
