Baby Babble

thanks, and why I haven't said it sooner ;)
I've been meaning to thank everyone individually for all of the kind, considerate, informative, and encouraging comments, emails, favors, and presents, but have finally realized that I'm probably not going to get around to doing so in any near future, so I will suffice with a general thanks here:

Thank You!!! :)

I've finally been calculating my time spent. I'm looking at roughly 60hrs/week at the hospital if I aim for two visits with the baby/day (I could make it less if I did late at night rather than afternoon and evening, but then I'd never see Patri ;) And if I assume a half hour for each pumping session, at seven/day (I was doing 8 but decided to cut down yesterday) that's 24.5hrs, which I think is actually a bit on the low side when including set up and clean up and the fact that it takes me a while to drag myself out of bed from a deep sleep in the middle of the night for those sessions. Of course, since I'm spending so much of my day at the hospital, there's probably about a 10hr overlap, so say I'm only looking at dedicating 75hrs/week to baby care ;) And what time I'm not spending on baby care I'm usually trying to spend with my husband.

I've averaged more than that estimate so far this week, but of course, I'm not certain that I'll actually manage to keep it up until we bring him home. They say at the hospital that you typically bring premie's home around their due dates. His is January 7th. However, we've read that they typically come home a little before that, and breast milk and kangaroo care are both supposed to get them home sooner, so he could be home as early as 34 gestational weeks, which would be about a month from now.

Of course, its not like bringing him home is going to be a big break or anything ;) I'm not sure how relatively busy I will be... on one hand, spending time with the baby and supplying breast milk won't have to be seperate activities, I won't have to set up and clean parts every time he feeds, and I won't have to drive back and forth to the hospital every day. On the other, I will have to take care of the baby 24/7, and will have to change diapers and/or do elimination communication. (we haven't seriously looked into EC yet) While I expect to be getting out of the house even less, I might at least be able to be on the computer more, and maybe even have some opportunity to read, as I can hopefully wear the baby in a sling (thanks E and B :) and have both hands free a lot more often ;)

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