LachlanMactaggart.com

Lachie is 1 month old today.

Lets see if he has changed.

1 Day Old!

And NOW, 1 Month Later

Lachlan had his first Grand Final party and got through it with flying colours. Its the longest time he’s had so many people around him, and he did what he is built to do.  Sleep.  He was awake a bit more than usual, but thats to be expected with all the extra noise.

This year the Grand Final BBQ was at our place, and we had a great turnout.

I did all tell you that a condition of walking in the house is agreeing to release any photos taken of you for use on the internet didn’t I?

The little man is not so little any more, as of Thursday he weighed 2.53kg, which is enough to get him dischared from the hospital.  But he’s been home for weeks, whats this leaving hospital all about.

Well, due to the fact that he was premature he required extra help and support, as such he remained a patient of the hospital and was seen every couple of days by a DOM nurse.  The DOM nurse is a more highly trained nurse that is attached to the special care nursery at the Anglis, and it was her job to track his progress to ensure it was on track.  The markers they use to know things are going well are weight gain, and reaching 2.5kg.  He has done both.  Hes now been staadily putting on weight, and has crossed the magical 2.5kg mark.

So that means he graduates.  He even got a certificate showing his progress.

What else…. Ummm hes now much more alert, staying awake for a good hour, or even longer, a lot of the time.  He has settled well into his 4hr feed plan, usually waking right on the 4hr time.  He now slurps down around 60ml per feed, but sometimes wants to guts on another 30ml more.

All in all he’s doing really well.. 

Onto the photos..  This is a backlog from the last week or so.

Rach’s Dad and Noline dropped in today to see how Lachie is progressing, and well he’s doing great guns. 

So it seems the shutter bug in me re-emerged, and here are the results.

Today was weigh day again for Lachie, and today the numbers moved the right way.  He has been weighed by a DOM nurse every 2-3 days since he has been home, but up until today hasn’t had an increase.  We did -6, 0 and -10 over the first 6 days at home, which prompted us to make some changes.

We are now starting to augment his feeding with 1-2 full formula feeds a day, as well as formula top ups after his boobie time.  And WOW does it work, we have been doing this for the last 2 days, starting just after his -10g day, and after todays weigh in he put on 100g..  Good Man.

That brings the grand total to 2390, he get’s his first award when he makes 2.5kg.. No seriously, he gets a certificate from the DOM nurse to say that he has progressed well and that his care will be left to us and the Maternal and Child health nurses.

The aim around here is for a couple of us to loose weight, while one needs to put it on.

No pictures today.. Will try and get some tonight, or better yet come see him in person.

So we had our first day out with the pram on the weekend and wow, Welcome to the world of even more people getting in the way.  I know there is no real process for walking through a shopping center, and we seem to be the people that move out of the way of others, but a pram really shows how senseless some people can be.

I guess to start this discussion you need to ask yourself are you a giver or taker?  Do you give way when others are coming through, or do you hold your ground and expect them to move for you?  I feel that Rach and I are always the one side stepping other people who think they are too busy or important to take a minor detour so we can both fit in the same area.  Now back to the pram.

So we are up at knox walking the little man through the shops and the main area, and you’d think that a big red pram stands out.. Well NO it doesn’t, how often we had to stop, turn sideways or whatever to not run someone down I don’t know.  But that will change soon.  See we are still the cautious parents, not wanting to wake him, or jump him around.  I’m sure that soon we’ll be happy to ram that little group of giggly girls not looking where they are going to give them a wakeup call.

Man am I sounding old!

But what is the go, should we walk in the centre, left, right??  There are no real rules here, it gets even harder when you have a trolley full of shopping and a pram.  At least there were 2 of us and not just 1.  From the minor experiments I performed on the weekend (not truely scientific) it seems people respond better to a shopping trolleys hurtling in their direction than they do to prams.  Must be the cozy soft looking padding that makes them want a touch.

So we’ll see, the next time we venture out with the pram who dares step in front of us, I might just take it out empty to tech some people a lesson…. and yes also get the good parents with prams parking spaces.

So onto the photos..  These ones are actually 4 days old…
I’ve obviously run out of Japanese tourist juice at the moment, but fret not.. I see a couple of days of photographic opportunities.

How cute is he!

Ok so it won’t be that hard, but check out the photos first and an update at the end.

So as you can see we are now HOME! Thats right we are now the complete family with the little dude getting clearance to leave the hospital.  On Friday Rach got asked if she was ready to room in early the following week, and of course she said she was, but the nurse thought that would be too long and suggested on doing it Saturday night.  With that Rach went home to get things organsied and see what we had left to do when he came home on Monday.

Well, when she returned to the hospital they asked where her bags were.  Her bags? What do you mean where are they?  Well it seems they brought forward the “Room in” day to Friday night, so back to home again, this time mad frantic getting a bag packed for her and Lachie for a 2 night stay at the hospital.

And that was Friday night, while the Pies thumped the Eagles, well at least in extra time we did, Rach and Lachie were getting their first night together in the same room.  The expectation would be that Rach would be in for 2 nights, to get used to his rythms and get the feeding and complete care stuff organised.

But in usual Rach fashion she did so well that at 1:00 on Saturday arvo they decided all was fine and they could both be released to go home.

Since we have been home all is going great guns, click more for more photos.

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Today is an eventful day in Lachies development.  The pediatric staff have looked at his progress and have decided that they can see how he goes with the tube out.  So now its feeds via the mouth 6 times a day.

Actually he’s been doing this for a day and a half, and still putting weight on, so its bottles overnight and the boob during the day. In his last bi-daily weighings he has put on 46 and 48 bringing him to a grand total of 2284g.  Kickn’ Ass!

So here is the last photo we have of him with his tube.  Farethee well little green friend, and thanks for helping with the little dudes development.

Now we move onto the tubeless shots.

Last but not least, back to where we started, minus one green tube and + a little bit of redness where the tape was.

Night little fella..