One Week Old

Mommy and Jack on Tuesday-One Week Old Today!

Waiting for Grammy to pick us up after visiting Mommy's doctor yesterday.

Callie and her baby brother

Grammy and her two grandkids . . . CRAZY!

Aunt Ginger holding Jack for the first time . . .

Grandma holding Jack for the first time

Jack is one week old today! That means he's 35 weeks gestation. He is still in the NICU but is improving each day. He's now in a "big boy bed" (that's NICU speak for an open air crib/bassinette). He is off of his IV and all other monitoring devices other than the ones monitoring his heart and breathing. He weighs 5 lbs 1.3 oz. He's eating 1 1/2 oz (45 ml) every 3 hours. Two of those feedings a day we attempt to give him by bottle, and the others all go through a feeding tube in his nose. He's getting stronger every day and is able to eat more from the bottle each time. Over the weekend he was only taking 5-10 ml's per feeding, but over the last couple of days he's eaten 25-35 ml's each feeding. Once he takes all 45 two times a day, they will attempt more.

He is also having 1-2 brady's per day. Bradychardia is when the heartrate goes below 80 (in Jack's case). He's only had one or two episodes where he stopped breathing, and he has recovered from all of the brady's by himself without needing stimulation. This is a common preemie problem. Fortunately babies develop the ability to maintain their heartrate around the same time that they are able to eat from a bottle.

The main reason that he's not eating it all yet is because he just can't stay awake long enough to get it all down. That will come with time. The neonatologist told me today that we are basically just waiting on development. He just needs to finish developing the reflexes to eat and breathe/maintain heartrate that he would have developed had he stayed in mommy's tummy to full term. We wll be able to bring him home when he can take 8 full feedings a day by bottle and has gone 5 days with no bradys. Hopefully he will have his "lightbulb moment" this week sometime so that we can work on coming home!

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts. They are working because our little guy doesn't have any issues other than what is totally normal for being born at 34 weeks.