Day 6

Baby steps.....

Today we made some progress... First update is Joshua didn't have any "episodes" (he didn't drop his heart rate) last night. They also checked his bilirubin last night and he is down to 11.3! This is great news because soon he will not have to stay under the lights! They aren't going to check his level again until Sunday morning so if all goes well we can get rid of the lights at that time.

Here is day 2 of basking in the sun....

Another big step is Joshua got to take breast milk from a bottle today! He did really well he took 10cc of his feed! They are slowly going up on his feeds everyday and he is currently at 40cc. To give you an idea 30cc = 1 ounce. So he is making some progress! His facial expression after he ate was priceless. He totally wasn't expecting to get food when he sucked! The nurses are going to increase his feeds every 12 hours as long as he tolerates it. Tolerating it basically means he doesn't spit up a ton. He lost his IV today (the IV came out of his vein). This is good news because they are going to increase his feeds a little faster so that he doesn't need to get a new IV to supplement his fluid intake. Today was the first day he had both of his hands to play with!

Here is his first bottle...

Next big step is we tried breast feeding later in the day. He actually latched on and sucked! He was shocked with this too! The nurses were very encouraging to me and Josh! All this hard work pumping is paying off! Ok so its not really hard work... but I do have to get up in the middle of the night to pump. Sorry we don't have a picture of his first breast feeding, sorry to disappoint.

He also gets weighed every night. He needs to steadily gain weight every day or not loose any. His weight today was 5 pounds 3 ounces which is slightly down from yesterday. He had a busy day, sucking from the bottle really wore him out...

check out his hands in the picture... he was exhausted.

Also...last night the nurses took his little foot prints!