September 19, 2006

Can you believe it... Aiden is 100 days old!!!
He is now weighing in at a whopping 5 pounds 13 ounces.. But still when you pick him up, is my little peanut.. I put newborn jammies on him tonight and he has about 3 inches in the feet, ha ha ha. It was so cute, but he's filling out well and as always cute as a button. One of the social workers tonight said that he use to look so much like chuck, but now he is starting to look like me.. YAY.. Not that I don't want him to look like Chuck, but it's nice to know he looks a little like his momma too.
He is on full feeds as of midnight last night, and as of 4pm today they increased his calories to 24 per ounce. It may seem like a 4 calorie increase isn't much, but to them it's a lot.
The 20 calorie he was tolerating well. After the first round of 24, he has 10 cc's come back, so at his 8 pm feed they gave him the 10 back plus 42cc's instead of the 52 he gets per feed. (30 cc's is an ounce) So he gets about 1 and 2/3 of an ounce per feeding. Which doesn't seem like a lot, but remember he is still tiny and by gestational age, still not suppose to be born for another week and two days.

With the calorie increase we are expecting that he has some come back for the next few feeds at least, because his belly needs to get use to digesting it. It has to work a bit harder to do this. In the mean time, they are keeping his pik line in his leg just incase. After the last episode we don't want to take it out and have something happen and then need it again. It's one of those better safe then sorry things, that I am all for right now.
He's also still on the nasal canula and I assume he will be for a bit longer too, since now he has a full belly every 4 hrs and that puts more pressure on his lungs. He's still 25 cc's or less of oxygen so that is not something that will stop him from coming home at all.
As for bottle-feeding, well he wasn't awake enough to attempt it again. And after yesterday I'm a bit nervous. He didn't do so well with me. He dsat'd and although his heart rate didn't go below the bad level, his oxygen dipped really low. I know it's going to take time, it just scared me, but I handled it well. I also want to talk to the doc to have OT work with him to find a nipple that he like and best suits him. I think that is going to work best for him. If everyone prefers a different on and uses a different one then it's going to affect him differently and he may not take to a bottle. I want him to use what he likes best and not what so and so likes at the time. It was also a suggestion form a few nurses to be consistent once we find one that he does well with, and that makes all then sense in the world to me. He also had another round of PT today, which I call baby yoga and palates.. He loves it and does really well. He actually does well with both OT and PT. YAY Aiden..
So here are our goals.. Stay on full feeds, tolerate the calorie increases, and bottle feed.
In between that, try to get off the oxygen.. Then we have to wait for the hearing test, and let his eyes heal some more.. Sounds so easy huh.. It's that last leg of the marathon, and now it's really starting to drag.
And the update on his eye progress is. There is no longer any sign of plus disease in either eye. One eyes is down to Stage 1 ROP and the other eye is still Stage 2 ROP but shows improvements. There is a possibility that he could wear glasses, as I have probably already mentioned, and that I can live with. We will see what the next eye exam on Monday shows.

Keep praying, we are on our way.. Go Aiden.. I can't wait for you to be home.. I love you peanut!