Four Pounds

Day 94 - three months old yesterday

Weight: 4 lbs!!!! WHOO HOO!

Samuel has had a good weekend. It's almost getting pointless to ask the nurse how he has been or what has been going on. Their answers are always the same.

"Has he had any residuals?" ' No.'

"Has he had any events?" ' No.'

"Is he sleeping well?" ' Yes....after I changed his diaper.'

"Anything else going on?" 'No.'

Most of my time in the room is spent consoling and holding, kissing and hugging, and keeping the pacifier in Samuel's mouth. I am really enjoying this.

Today the nurse is not putting Samuel's milk on a timer. She is putting the milk in a syringe and letting gravity pull it down into his stomach. It's the quickest feed yet - and he is doing great.

Tomorrow at 11am they will give Samuel his first bottle! If all goes well, they will steadily increase the number of bottle feeds he gets a day. Our main concern will be to keep him from aspirating (the whole suck-swallow-breathe thing can be a bit difficult apparently.) The occupational therapist will give him his first bottle - in case he doesn't respond well.

Dr. Arrington's last day on duty was today. He will go off for several weeks. Dr. Ross will be back on this week. I know that he will try to get Samuel off the Lasix as soon as he can - which is great - but I don't want them to make too many changes in one week. I'm not sure what they plan on doing about Samuel's oxygen. He is still on the nasal cannula at an eighth of a liter.

Samuel's hernia is getting larger. It seems like it's growing each day. The surgeon came to see it this morning and said that there isn't anything that they can do about it until he is at least 5 lbs. It would be great if he could hold off until he is 7 or 8 lbs because the surgery is more likely to be a permanent fix the bigger the baby is.

Samuel's due date is in 14 days. Amazing.