3 Months and Counting

Happy 3 month birthday (yesterday) Benjamin!

Benjamin is really starting to eat well. Friday night at about 8pm he decided he had enough of the feeding tube and took it out himself! Since then he has taken every feeding by mouth without needing the tube!!! This is fabulous and we are praying that he will be able to continue this trend as it will enable him to come home. I believe that he must eat on his own at least 3 days straight and gain weight before he can come home. The next challenge will be to breathe better on his own. Right now he is still on a nasal cannula, which they expect him to go home with. He was down to a pretty low flow, but this evening they had to increase it a bit, possibly due to lots of energy in eating and an eye exam. Please pray that his lungs are strengthened.

He is growing! He is 4lbs 14oz. We are hoping that he will grow in length more this week too. He gets measured tomorrow, so we will see then. Possibly the biggest news of today...he moved out of the Intensive Care Nursery and into the Intermediate Nursery! It is still part of the NICU, but it is the side for graduates that will be going home soon. For 93 days I have watched dozens of babies come into the unit, stay awhile, and move on over to "the other side" and now it is finally our turn!!!

Our most asked question these days is of course, when will he go home? It could be as early as a week if he can be weaned down on his nasal cannula and eat well. We still have a lot to do to get ready for his discharge like taking an infant CPR class and carseat class (yes, we actually have to take a class on carseats! I guess it is not as straight forward for preemies?), cleaning our house that has been under some minor construction (thank you Curt and John!) and totally neglected the past 3 months, and setting up Benjamin's new room. Good things are coming! YEAH!