June 23, 2011

Today is a day worth celebrating, though hasn't every day in the past week and a half been? The doctors assign a status to each baby every day; today was Aaron's first non-critical day!

During "kangaroo care" time, Aaron was all eyes. He was interested in everything!!!



Aaron's bilirubin count went down to 9.8 today, and he still on the biliblanket. The nurses expect it to continue going down. His milk feedings were increased to 15ml every three hours today, which is a half an ounce! Each time they increase his milk, they decrease his IV fluids. When he gets up to full feedings and no longer needs the IV fluids, his picc line will be removed. That will be wonderful as any line or tube is an opportunity for infection. He also went up 2 oz today; he is 4 lbs 2 oz! The great thing about this is that it doesn't appear to be fluid; it appears to be positive weight gain!

We are continuing to pray for his bilirubin to decrease and for his feedings to be able to increase so that he can come off of the IV fluids. We are also praying that as the doctors continue to test for possible causes to Aaron's early arrival that they will find no deficiencies in his development.

I am running out of things to update at this point because he is doing so well! That's a positive thing! A few of his previous caregivers stopped by today to check on Aaron. One was a nurse that was at his delivery; she said she was discussing him with my OB nurses, and they were astonished at how well he was doing. She said that miracles still do happen!

Another nurse that cared for him came by and said that she was sad she missed the first time I held him but that she had checked on him every shift she worked. She said it was amazing what prayers were able to accomplish! Finally, the neonatologist from his delivery was the doctor on call tonight. She came in and said that his bilirubin was down, his feedings were up, and his IV fluids were down. There was nothing else to say; I told her I was completely happy with that! Thank God!