Guess who's fattening up....

Well, William finally did it – he hit the five pound mark! In fact, he went from five pounds last night to five pounds, three ounces tonight. He has officially doubled his birth weight. The preemie clothes that used to drape over his skin now close snugly over his ever increasing belly. In days gone by William might have been going home with us at this point. With the advent of more advanced medical technology, we realize that even though William keeps gaining weight, he is still a long way from coming home.

Today has been a pretty good day thus far. His feeds were advanced to six milliliters per hour this morning and then to seven milliliters per hour this evening. He is about halfway to full feeds of fifteen milliliters, given his current weight (of course that may change as he keeps gaining more baby fat). If all looks well on his follow-up belly X-ray tomorrow morning to check for any recurrent pneumatosis, his feeds will continue to advance by one every twelve hours. Of course, he is still being fed through the feeding tube. He is not yet ready for feeding by mouth.

William continues to struggle with reflux which occasionally exacerbates his apnea and bradycardia spells. We are not sure if he will need to be put on the acid reflux medicine he was on a couple of weeks ago. The issue with the reflux medicine is that it can increase his risk for NEC and other stomach issues. So we shall see what the future brings.

In other news, William received his first bath yesterday! Unfortunately, we videotaped the event so there are no pictures to post. His daytime primary nurse did most of the work while Rob and I helped in various ways. William did really well and seemed to enjoy getting his hair shampooed and his body massaged with baby lotion following the bath. Rob even combed and parted William’s hair (that is emanating a red tint more with each day).  If William stays stable, we should be able to give him another bath next week. At least the water wasn’t too dirty with six weeks of grime in it.

 - Lori

In his boppy for the first time



Sleeping Clean Monkey