13.1.09

I spent my first night at home which was lovely and Lucas is just the best tonic. He was very pleased to see mummy home and even happier when I put on some Thomas the Tank Engine episodes! It was the nicest feeling to get lots of cuddles and do the bedtime routine etc and Lucas just makes everything seem bearable.
We spent the morning in the house with Lucas and had the builders in finishing the stairs. I really didn't plan this baby well as although Lucas arrived when I was still at work, we had at least hoped to have the conversion finished before this wee one arrived and have a few weeks of getting the house organised. Alas no, and so Gary's office is still in our bedroom and my poor dad has been furiously painting and sanding etc inbetween everything else to get things ready for the carpet being fitted on Thursday. At least that will be it all done and dusted as they say. I keep hoping that one day we will look back and laugh at how tough this time was and think 'how did we do it?'
We visited Theo in the afternoon and he is still settled and stable. He is gathering quite a bit fluid and his body and face is a bit swollen from being on ventilation and not moving around due to the morphine. This is common and although not a big problem, they are giving him something to encourage him to wee it out. Poor wee thing still has so many lines in him and there is not one arm or foot which doesn't have something attached. He had his eyes opened again today and it is so tough seeing him looking around as all you want to do is pick him up and cuddle him. It's so hard not being able to reassure your baby that he will be ok but I'm hopeful that one day I will be able to do this when he is bigger and stronger. They started to introduce some milk today which is promising as they said they wouldn't consider this for a while yet but he seems to have tolerated 1ml every hour so they will stick with this just now. It would be fantastic if he manages this as otherwise they may need to take him to theatre on Friday to put a mainline into his leg and they are reluctant to do this as every line is like a foreign body and so carries the risk of an infection. Keep everything crossed he tolerates the milk and starts to absorb it. The difficulty is that little Theo has to contend with being premature and all the problems associated with a large exomphalos so he has twice the battle. You can see in his eyes that he has lots of fight in him and even the care staff say his eyes look older and wiser than they should...a sure sign he is going to show everyone what he is made of :-)