31 weeks

Today little man is 31 weeks, 9 to go until his due date.

On doctors' rounds this morning it was very brief...'up his feeds to 160 ml as his duct has closed. Liver scan was good....Your son is very boring now', said the doctor to Phil. Yay! In this case we love boring!! That means that next week when doctor Mary is back on she can't call him a complex or challenging baby anymore, because now all he needs to do is get big and strong.

His milk is being fortified to 26 calories as of this morning and increasing to 160 ml per kilo, which is now 14ml every two hours. He is weighing in overnight, but not sure if this will have an effect straight away, so perhaps next weigh in will be the start of his bigness and strongness..

Yesterday I was introduced to another parent of a 23 weeker that had returned for a check up with Dr Jenny. Her baby was 13 months old corrected age, she said which I think means 13 months from her expected due date. I don't think I will be saying this to people as it is very confusing, and once they get a certain age it all evens out anyway. Obviously when Jensen is one year old, developmentally he will be around 8 months old. Things like crawling, teething, developing motor skills etc for Jensen will align with his age from his expected due date of 20th May. Of course I am going to spend every minute with him helping him to catch up and develop his skills so he will be no different from any other child his age. They say that premature babies are more socially aware and developed as they have been in the outside world from a much earlier age than those born at term. He already looks at us like he can see us, and responds to our voices and touch. When he hears our voices he tries to turn his head to where we are or move his eyes in that direction.

I know I was saying a few posts ago that we couldn't wait to hear him cry, but now his little squeaks of sadness make me want to cry. Such tiny little noises, so much so we have to put our ear almost inside the crib to hear them. I just want to pick him up and cuddle him when he is sad or cranky and have found not being able to a little tough. This is where my beautiful singing voice steps in and seems to settle him straight away. This morning I had to sing in front of the nurse...which was a little embarrassing for a minute until she saw how it calmed him down. None of them seem very keen to participate in the singing, except of course Ester....

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