Happy One Week Birthday!

This cute little man turned one week old today! How can that even be possible?!? Happy Birthday little peanut!

Once again Liam had another wonderful day. He had his scheduled one-week-old head ultrasound and it looked “stable”. He was born with the Chari formation, where the base of the brain is pulled into the top of the spinal canal, which is common in myelo babies. There has been no change since he was born! Also, the circumference of his head has not changed either. This means that so far he does NOT need a shunt. YAH!

When we got to the hospital this morning they told us that they are planning on taking him off the CPAP tomorrow as well. They have lowered the pressure all the way down and he is basically breathing with little to no pressure. They are going to put him on high flow tomorrow, which looks like a regular oxygen tube in his nose. The mask that he has to wear over his head is causing his eyes to be puffy and swollen. He barely opens them but managed to keep them open for about a half hour today.

We are hoping that once the CPAP mask comes off that his head will not increase in size but are prepared in case he does need a shunt. They are also increasing his food intake every 12 hours. As we write this he is up to 16 mL every 3 hours. Allison’s milk still hasn’t come in but so far she is staying above his need.

Since he is a week old they also took two different bacteria test. If he passes both tests then the hospital gowns and gloves come off! Right now the only time we can touch him bare handed is when we are doing skin to skin care. Every other time we have to be suited up. We can't wait to be able to touch him all the time without the gloves on. His skin is as soft as butter. 

We are slowly making a routine here in Philly. We are getting around the city much better and don’t need to use the GPS every time we go out. We spend the good part of every day at the hospital and go back most nights. We feel bad when we leave and miss him terribly. All we do when we leave is talk about him and how much we wish he was with us. Some nights we are just too tired and need more rest.

The nurses are letting us hold him more and for longer periods of time as long as we do skin to skin. It is our favorite part of the day. He mostly sleeps and toots on us which fine by us.

We went out and bought him some preemie clothes since none of the newborn clothes will come close to fitting him. The nurses think by the end of the week he will be able to wear clothes. Right now he is a naked baby all the time.

Well, we are off to eat dinner and head to back to the NICU. We promise to post more pictures tomorrow once he has the mask off and you can actually see his cute face. Thanks for all the prayers.