Basic Instincts........

So my sweet little man is now 4 pounds 10 ounces way over the 2000 gram mark!!!!!! He is gaining like a champ. His lungs are still bad and they had to put him on cpap again and are not switching out the nasal cannula until he can start satting in the 20s/30s. Right now he is satting in the 40s/50s. I got to help give him a bath last night and oh boy did he not like it. He screamed and screamed(music to my ears......you never realize what you take for granted until you dont have it....for the first 2 months of Thurstons life I never got to hear him due to him being on the vent and ng tube etc......now crying is the most beautiful sound I will ever hear). Anyway, I started paniking because the nurse had to take his cpap mask off in order to bathe him and I was worried that he was not getting the oxygen he needed. She noticed my concern and told me that unfortunately parents are trained to look to the monitor to see how their babies are doing, rather than trained to look at the baby. She said you know he is doing well by the color of his skin, his lips, the fact he was pissed off and squirming, and crying. If he wasnt doing these things, thats when you start worrying. I kept thinking about this notion, that parents in the NICU turn off their natural instincts and start relying on what the doctors, nurses, and equipment are saying. She is so right that I need to just start listening to my sweet boy.
Because Thurston has IUGR(or growth restriction) they have constantly cautioned us at how this will effect his development. I like to nickname some of the doctors Oh there is Dr. Gloomy and Dr. Doomy just for some levity. I even had a run in with a nurse practitioner(this particular one I call Dr. Strangelove) that mentioned CP(cerebral Palsy..which you cant really diagnose until a child is around 18 months or so unless it is extremely severe)even though I only asked about Thurstons chronic lung disease. Chad called the doctor the next day and he told us that cp would havce nothing to do with his lungs and he wasnt sure why the nurse practitioner would even have mentioned it. I am really done with what seems to me hyperbole and all of this crystal ball bull shit. Chad has always told me, even in the bitter first few weeks,"he looks good Donna, he looks like a normal baby, just small". I am now inclined to believe my husband, who has never once lost faith in Thurston. He does look and act normal. He looks around, tracks, looks straight at you when you are talking to him, turns his head to noises, he is now clasping his hands together, he flexes his legs and arms and really, just seems like a normal baby. I wont delude myself to think that he may not have issues as he grows, but I am tired of also deluding myself into thinking that he doesnt have a shot at a somewhat normal life either. I am finally going to grab the proverbial bull by the horns and start utilizing something that every new mother has within her, those eternal motherly basic instincts.......