William at 7 weeks old/35 weeks adjusted age



Without a nasal cannula for just a few minutes

At times it seems like it has been ages since I gave birth, but then I remember that even if I had given birth today that William still would have been born five weeks prematurely. This thought carries me through the times I feel like I may never get to take my little boy home with me (and the times when Rob and I desperately feel like unplugging all the hospital equipment and carrying William out with us like a small carry-on bag on an airplane).

How ironic that I composed that above thought yesterday when I originally planned to post this update even though all was progressing smoothly. As you can guess, since yesterday William has suffered another setback….but more on that after some good news.

William may be destined for the heavyweight class when he is older. As of today, he weighed in at a hefty five pounds, eleven ounces and was 17.2 inches in length. Since little chubster keeps gaining weight, the medical staff weight adjusted his feeds to 17 milliliters with 24 calorie human milk fortifier, which William had completely attained.

Now the not so great news – an abdominal X-ray today showed distention in the duodenum jejunum area of his intestine. William is now off feeds again and receiving fluids through a peripheral IV. Tomorrow, he will have a dye contrast study done to see if he has a stricture in his intestine as a result of the NEC infection he potentially had a couple of weeks ago. If so, he will require surgery to remove that part of his intestine.

Just yesterday, William was able to get his PICC line removed since he no longer was receiving the supplemental TPN and lipid nutrition. As of now, the line is still out, but we shall see what adventure the next few days bring us….

-Lori