What’s the Haps, Mr. Harrison

Once Harrison hit four pounds, I wanted to shout from the rooftops.


I wanted to break out the bubbly and have a toast to this milestone.


I wanted to do a little high fivin’ a million angels, Liz Lemon style.

Because seriously… doesn’t four pounds even sound way bigger than three?


Four pounds is something we can manage. We’ve done darn near four pounds before and those kids aren’t completely messed up, right?


Four pounds makes him look so healthy. When he was born, I thought he looked perfect, for then, for three pounds. But he continues to look better by the day. And honestly, he just looks so much less translucent now. I know. That’s horrible to say. But at first, his skin was so thin and he had so little fat on him that his eyelids and belly and other taut parts, almost appeared to be translucent. And so now it’s so fun to see him with his chunky little smooshed up cheekies.


So what’s the haps with Mr. Harrison? Here’s the weekly update {but keep in mind, every day is a new day;)}… And again… this is not a medical update, per se, because I am defintely not a doctor {not even of love}… but rather a “We’re the parents and this is how we see it” update {and the likelihood that I’ve got all of this right… like the wording and such… is highly improbable}. AKA a whole lotta info that I want to capture for Harrison’s someday spouse.


Harrison is currently at a gestational age of 36.4 and he is officially 30 days old. He is currently weighing around 4 lbs 3 ounces {Barrett reached 4 lbs 3 oz at his lowest point}. The last three days, he’s had no weight loss {why yes! I will pause for a moment to allow for your cheers, hoots and hollas}. Aaaaaand…He has officially reached the coveted weight: 1900 grams! As I’d said in the last Harrison update, 1900 grams is the official threshold for babies to graduate from a superhero chamber {SHC} to a crib. We will play a little bit of wait and see as to what they decide for H dog as he has to be able to keep his temp up. But when he does, he’ll be movin’ on up!


The temp… That brings me to a few important details regarding the NICU and Harrison. A lot of people have been asking us how long Harrison will be hangin’ out at the hospital. Before Harrison can go home, certain benchmarks have to be met. Those benchmarks include but are not limited to…

• ability to maintain body temperature
• a certain time period without any alarms
• making it through the feeding pathway
• consistent weight gaining and maintaining
• Passing the car seat test

And here’s where Harrison stands in terms of those benchmarks…

Harrison’s isolette is bumped up a bit in temperature in order to make him work less to have to maintain his body temp. In order to be a “good” temp for charting purposes, they seem to like it at 97.6 or above. If it is lower, I understand this to be less than ideal. With the current isolette temp of 85.1, he seems to have no issue maintaining a temp of 97.6 to 98.0, which is good. So they will likely continue to attempt to decrease the SHC once again and see how he maintains. If he has to work less to maintain his temp, he doesn’t burn as many calories. And thus, his weight loss is less. 

I tell him every feeding I am there, “Do not be alarmed, H.” but sometimes he still is. Because when immature babes are attempting to remember to suck, swallow, breathe {SSB} and be cute, that can be a lot of work for them and sometimes they have “Brady’s” {heart rate decels} and “Desats” {oxygen decels} and those two things trigger the alarms. And also, on occasion, when he spits up, he will experience the same issues. And some of that will get better not only by the day but from hour to hour.

The feeding pathway is the measure used to assess where these babes are at with their feeding abilities. As I said before, preemie feeding habits are different than full-term babes in that they are often tuckered out within a couple minutes of latching while breastfeeding and so they “fall off” quite often during a feeding stint. Harrison is currently on what is called, “Pathway x4”. This means that he can attempt nipple feeding four times out of his eight daily feedings. And in order to even attempt a feeding, he has to be alert and cueing. And if mom or the person holding the bottle is working harder than he is, we must abort the mission. For example, we attempted two feedings yesterday at the breast. The first he latched and ate for 3 minutes and then completely fell asleep. Which also meant he had a Brady and a Desat because he forgot to do the swallow and breathe part of the SSB business. So he received a half of a feed via gavage feeding. For his other attempt, he latched for a minute and then fell asleep, even though he was wide-eyed and bushy tailed at the onset. So in order to graduate past Pathway x4, he has to maximize all four nipple {either bottle or breast} feedings and also be able to take his 4 gavage feedings at a rate of a half hour. And by maximize, it means that he would need to a)finish all of his bottles and/or b) feed consistently at the breast for 10 minutes, which is currently a “full feeding” for him. Then we will move to Pathway x5. Then Pathway x6. And because he will get two bottles of fortified formula a day {aids in developing his brain pathways and provides additional protein and vitamins essential for growth} when we go home to make up the last two feedings, after Pathway x6, we go to ad lib feeding, which is what I believe most people must do with full-term babes… meaning they let you know when they are hungry and you feed them. So the feeding is our current BHAG.

And in a perfect segue from feeding is weight gain. Harrison is spitty. Sometimes downright barfy. And for the first few weeks, this really affected his weight gaining and maintaining. As did the temperature. And also his inability to have his feeds over anything less than an hour. But it would seem that the docs/dieticians/pharmacists et al are working together quite nicely to bump up his calories enough in an effort to counteract his spits. And also, they have just moved his feeds to 45 minutes in length to see if he can tolerate it. So I think we are moving in the right direction on this piece. Harrison had his third and fourth tummy X-rays the other day to confirm that he does not have anything abnormal going on in his belly. He will have days where he is excessively spitty and crabby, his belly is distended and firm and his system is slow to move things through {read: he needs to poop} and so they have been very diligent with his labs and his X-rays to make sure he doesn’t have a blockage or obstruction in his bowels. On the second time around of the X-ray, it was the first time since he came that I got nervous…because it was a repeat test. But two hours later, all was good… Because every hour is a new hour. 

And lastly, the car seat test. B and J also had to pass this because they were also {barely} pre-term. They have to ensure that preemies can keep their O2 levels up while having to be upright in the car seat. If they don’t pass it, they take it again. I have always been terrible at test taking so we’ll see how Harrison does with such things. 

All in all, it’s really becoming pretty routine. We are getting to know this little man quite well. And what he lacks in weight, he makes up in snuggles, so that’s a plus. And though we have no specific timeline on when he will go home, I am almost certain it will be before the snow stops in Nebraska and if last year is any indication, that gives a good cushion until May. And by then, he’ll be sleeping through the night… Right?;)