March 31: Ethan's Crazy 'Do

Ethan is now taking regular baths and the nurses are having some fun with his hair. He's had some crazy 'do's the last two days and I had to share the pictures. He can't quite rock the Maddox mohawk yet...think his hair needs to fill in a little more first...;-).

We're still moving forward. Ethan's got the OK to take a bottle for every feed, but still hasn't been able to do so. The nurses don't want to force him, so it's in their discretion whether he gets a bottle or if they gavage feed him. His respiratory rate was high today, but he did have an eye exam this morning and saw his physical therapist (both of which came back normal), so the nurse on duty thought he may just be tired out and decided to skip his 1pm bottle. Ethan reacted to this is a very positive manner. Before the 4pm check, he was wide awake and making it very apparent that he was ready for a bottle by mouthing anything he could...his thumb, his whole fist, my finger when he got a hold of it, and even at one point, he went for my shirt. His RR still being up, his nurse got out the aspirator and pulled two huge boogers out of his nose. I have no idea how he was breathing around those things. After that, his breathing was not as hard and it was game on...both Jon and I were able to feed him by bottle...me at his 4pm and Jon at his 7pm feed. He's doing so great. His coordination and master of the bottle gives us reassurance that it's not going to be too much longer when he'll take a bottle every time. He's up to 40ml per feed as of today as well (he was at 36ml).

He also has not had a Brady for 2 days. We are not on Brady watch yet, but this is another good sign. With everything seemingly happening so fast, Jon and I realized this weekend that we need to get some classes in soon: "Infant CPR" and "Taking your Baby Home". We'll be trying to fit these in this week still if we can...we're waiting on the April schedule to figure out our plan of action.

After the classes and the regular bottle feeds, the next (not so subtle) queue that we're getting closer will be that the doctors ask us to bring in his car seat. They will test him by sitting him in it for an hour to make sure he handles it well. Yay!

We're trying not to get too ahead of ourselves. One day at a time right now and we're happy with every days progress and just trying to stay in the moment. We realize how lucky we are that Ethan is as healthy as he is given the situation and realize we're just so blessed to have him in our lives. We can wait a few extra days to bring him home if need be provided he comes home for good...happy and healthy.