We have no sense of time right now. Tess is 5 weeks old; that’s 5 weeks of working when we can (not even Easter was sacred!), spending as much time as possible with her, sleeping only after blogging, planning, cleaning, driving…it’s a weird routine. Not a bad routine – just totally different from our lives up to this point. I don’t think it’s the normal new parent routine either. That’s still to come! Our feeling is more of just fitting everything in as we can and kind of floating through it. Whether we have a good or bad day is now only slightly impacted by other things – if Tess has a good day, we have a good day.

Thankfully, her many good days mean our time here isn’t miserable at all. We’re slowly getting out a bit more to see Salt Lake, we’ve adjusted to our hospital-based schedule, and we’re making friends. I’m relieved and feel slightly guilty about how ‘not awful’ this is sometimes! We’re regulars at our coffee shops – they know our order. We’ve found a few restos we like. Even I know how to get around (kind of). Spring is in full bloom. The weather is sunny and warm. Patios are opening, and while we’d rather be home, this is not a bad place to spend a few months. We don’t feel settled in, but we do feel adjusted to the current setup.

Tess is teetering on the brink of sick or awesome. God, preemiedom can be weird! Her red blood cell count is quite low (paleness – check), but Dave and I thought her color looked a bit better yesterday, and we were right. Her production of red blood cells is exponentially improved, and actually way beyond where they expected her to be for her age. So it comes down to whether or not she can hang on for the new red cells she’s producing to mature before she needs help, aka another transfusion. Unfortunately, every transfusion shuts down the body’s drive to produce, so please cross your fingers that she makes it a few days like this and stays healthy. Then she’s past another hurdle!

Speaking of hurdles, she had her first eye exam today with a clean bill of health. Man, when they say she’ll hate stuff, it still doesn’t prepare you for the heart wrenching wailing! Thank god it’s a fast test and I got to hold her before and after. She’s also doing pretty well on 2 liters, and gained another ounce – to 3 lbs 3 oz! She’s getting knee wrinkles. Our superstar. 🙂

Well, we put another nurse on the ‘no’ list. We tried to make it work this weekend, but the day nurse did not see eye-to-eye with us at all. For example, we got to evening cares a little early; we just weren’t paying attention, but have always respected the one hour a night the NICU is closed, so they told us to come in and stay in the lobby. This was apparently the straw that broke the day nurse’s back: we held Tess for too long in her opinion, we picked her up while she was sleeping (she’s always sleeping!), the diapers we use are too big and we got here too early. She looked furious. Ack! Life’s too short. I can’t say it’s ever easy to cabosh someone, but in this case personality-wise and care-wise it was a bad fit, so we’re relieved to put it behind us. When the nurses we respect are quiet about a coworker, it’s not a good thing. when they’re not, it’s even more reassuring. When we requested she be off our rotation, the nurse said, “I can totally see that not working!”

Going from that to Lexie is downright delightful! Dave made an unintentionally crude joke (only Dave!! The unintentional part) to the NICU staff creeper (oh, yes – can’t make this stuff up), and it was nice to laugh inappropriately with someone who knows the down and dirty side of things at the hospital!

We’re ending the evening as always, with Tess snuggled up with one of us and both of us reading like old people. It’s downright cozy in here!