Spencer at 4 weeks Spencer at 11 weeks
His progress has been moving a little quicker this last week. He moved to 4 bottles/day over the weekend and just today he advanced to 5 bottles/day (out of 8). This is exciting news! Although, this change means he will have to take two bottle feeds in a row during a 24-hour period (typically they alternate bottle or feeding tube every three hours). We will see if this tires him out or if he is able to maintain. It sounds like babies go one of two ways - either they are too weak and stall out at 5 bottles for awhile, or they are ready for the change and quickly advance from 5 to 6, then 7, then 8. The next few days will tell...
In general, his feedings are going well and Matt and I are just staring to get the hang of it. I felt pretty confident I would be able to feed him by bottle, but have discovered it's much harder than anticipated, and nothing like feeding a full-term infant. The doctors and nurses keep encouraging us to be here as much as possible to get experience with the feeds, but it's really hard to be there more than once a day, since we have Carter to care for.
Spencer's breathing has been very steady. He is at 30 cc (correction from the last blog entry) and has few alarms each day. I was talking to the doctor today and she still thinks there is a chance Spencer could kick the oxygen habit before he leaves. They will probably try one more "last ditch" effort next week to see if they can wean him off. If he doesn't respond well, they will opt to send him home on oxygen.
Which brings me to a point - We would REALLY like it if Spencer didn't come home with a monitor or oxygen. I know we could do it, and we would get used to it, but of course we would just prefer not to have any of that. So, if you are the praying kind, please pray for one more miracle for our little guy. Please pray we could go home without a monitor and without oxygen. This really would be a miracle, but we know God could do it.
One last update - the eye doctor came and examined Spencer's eyes again. He found them developing just as they should and signed off on him until his 6-month check up. This means........Spencer can see!! Can you imagine what a relief it is to know your child isn't blind? Praise God.
Thank you for your support. We are literally in the home stretch now. Spencer could get released as early as next weekend if his feeds continue to go well and he passes a series of tests next week. We will keep you posted!
Spencer looked so cute in this outfit today, I wanted to eat him =)
Look how big the bottle is compared to his head. Ha!
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