One-Eyed Willie

The latest and greatest on little Will is that he is doing AWESOME! On Sunday night he was transferred from the NICU at Minneapolis Children's Hospital over to the Special Care Nursery at Abbott (where I delivered). Special Care is sort of that stage in between a regular newborn nursery and a NICU, where babies are considered "stable", but still need a little extra care until they are big enough to go home. They have started feedings through a little tube in his nose that goes into his stomach and they have been able to increase each feeding by 1ml. He is now at 10mls per feeding, which is only about 2tsp. It seems like such a little amount, but he's a little guy! He does have some jaundice, so he has been under the phototherapy lights for several days now. He's improving, but it's not uncommon for babies this age to take longer to get back to a normal range. This morning I was allowed to give him his 1st sponge bath, which was interesting. He absolutely hated having his body washed, but as soon as I started washing his hair he was completely content. I talked to his nurse a little while ago and she said he's been kicking up a storm all evening. Apparently even when he is sleeping his arms and legs will suddenly flail out, then he curls up again and goes back to dreamland. He seems pretty easygoing and content compared to some of the other babies in his pod! Here is a funny pic from my visit today...........he hasn't really opened his eyes much since he was born, but has been putting a lot more effort into it the last couple of days. He was able to get one eye open for me, but didn't have enough energy to keep the other eye open for as long!