Alexander is doing very well with his feedings and is now taking 10 cc's of breast milk in his feeding tube, every three hours. This puts him just shy of 1.5 lbs. He may be up and down day to day but he should gain week over week. He is still taking the breast milk on a pump so that it slowly goes into his stomach over the course of an hour and he is then able to better digest it. I can tell that he is handling it by the poopy diapers I am changing now!! They were going to decrease and shut off his extra fluids (like lipids) today and see how he does. If he can get all his nutrients through his feedings they will be able to take out that PICC line. This is another big thing as each tube and IV he has can be a potential source of infection.
We just have to keep him free of any infection so we don't have to put another IV into his small body.
Alexander's lung disease is being managed and he had a good x-ray on Wednesday - clearer than his others in the last week. He's still taking between 40-50% oxygen, which is what they expect, but we would love if he would do better. It's very hard sometimes to think that a machine is what is keeping your baby alive, but it's the truth right now. He just doesn't take enough breaths on his own, but I know he'll get there.
Seeing his eyes completely opened for the first time was amazing!! You can really tell now when he's awake and when he's trying to sleep. We are really starting to get to know our little man and learn his cues. They will start testing his eye sight at 30 weeks (so we have 3 more weeks before they do that), but I was told that he should be sensitive to light and would be able to see blurry colors.
Here are the latest photos with his eyes opened!
Tired boy! He was up for an hour with me - eating, getting his diaper changed, temperature taken and other "cares," as they are called by the nursing staff.
No comments:
Post a Comment