Straight, no chaser

Caffeine! Calvin is getting some caffeine as we speak. Today felt like a half step backward, at least for two anxious parents. He kept having the heart rate drops (bradycardia, if you want to google it) that have been occurring each day, but more frequently, and his oxygen saturation was maybe a bit low. His respiration continues to be rapid- in the afternoon a blood test showed that his CO2 levels have been creeping up over the last 24 hours, and the nurses taking care of him said that he looked like he was working pretty hard on his breathing.

Sounds scary, but one thing (of several things) I've come to accept over the last week is that I need to recalibrate my definition of 'scary'. There are alarms going off constantly in the NICU, and most of them seem to be in the 'expected for preterm babies' category. So, in the absence of any real sense of alarm from the healthcare folk, we feel ok. Having him come out for some skin-to-skin bonding helped the mood.
Back to the caffeine: it's supposed to help him out with the bradycardia and maybe get the breathing a little more under control. The coffee in the hospital coffee shop (The Metropole) oscillates between tolerable and revolting- hopefully the pure caffeine is of higher quality.

On the good side of things: he's off his IV, he didn't pee all over the place when I changed him this time, and the nurse watching over him today was awesome.