A good day in the NICU

Today so far (knock on wood) has been a good day for our little man. He made some good strides forward, and no steps backward (yet today, and hopefully it stays that way). We are still trying to get adjusted to the idea that in the NICU it is normal to expect one step forward, one step backward. That a good day may mean two steps forward and only one back. But today it was slow and steady forward progress.

He is doing super well on his feedings, which is one of the measures they use to assess when he is able to go home. He has to get up to "full feedings" which is 40 mL at a feeding, every three hours. He was on 5 mL per feeding, and now he's up to 10 mL and doing really well with no "residuals" (nothing left over undigested in the tummy when it is time for the next feeding). So if he keeps that up the doctors have said he will more or less go up by 5 mL per day.

Today he had his first ever bottle! Woohoo! He took the whole amount for his feeding by mouth, which is a big accomplishment for the little guy, who until this point has been fed by nasogastric tube (tube straight into his tummy). He will still take feedings by tube so we don't over tax him, but so long as he does well with it, he will keep building up the proportion of feedings he takes by mouth.

The last couple days we have also experimented with little breastfeeding sessions. Nothing major, not as a source of substantial nourishment, but for the little guy to learn how it works. He has done better than expected with it, which makes me hopeful that some day we will be able to transition him to 100% breastfeeding and I can stop all this incessant pumping. But however he eats, we are just happy he's eating.

Still no date fixed for his homecoming. We'd really appreciate it if you didn't ask. As you can imagine, this is a hard subject for us: it is very difficult to live with the uncertainty about something that is so eagerly anticipated. Rest assured that the minute we are given an estimated date for his homecoming, we will broadcast it loud and clear and with total joy.