Willie Update

This morning I went to visit Will and got to hold him for AN HOUR! That is the longest I have held him since he was born. He has been jaundiced and under phototherapy lights, so we've been restricted to 30 minute holding times every 3 hours. When I arrived today however, I found that his bilirubin levels had gone down significantly, so they took him off of phototherapy. This is what gave us a little more freedom to hold him for a longer period. They still don't want him out of his isolette for hours at a time, simply because he expends a lot of energy when being held and stimulated, but apparently an hour is o.k.! They will continue to monitor his levels with daily pokes in his poor little foot, so if it goes up again, he will need to be put back under the lights. Today was a very big day for us because not only was he taken off of phototherapy, but he also had his IV removed (the last one was in his HEAD and that really freaked me out)!!! Once a baby reaches 26ml (1oz is 30ml) per feeding, additional fluids are no longer required...which means no IV. It was so nice to walk in and see him with only half the number of wires we had been dealing with before. He looked so happy and much more comfortable! The next big milestone is to get the feeding tube removed and start him on the bottle. Even though he is tolerating his feedings very well, he's still a little too young to grasp the concept of eating and breathing at the same time, so we run the risk of him choking if we start too early. They are going to give him some more time to get used to his pacifier and get the sucking motion down before they try him on a bottle. They are also waiting for him to be more alert. He is a very sleepy boy and so far has had no interest in opening his eyes for more than about 5 seconds. His ability to stay awake for at least a few minutes at a time is definitely going to help when learning to feed! I'm dying to know when he is finally going to be big and strong enough to come home!