105

Today marks 105 days since UWMC became my home. I have been in this place for 15 weeks. The equivalent to a semester of college, just about 1/3 of the year. So far the year 2016 has been lived out in either room 609 in the antepartum wing or room 80 in the NICU. The past seven weeks being in the later room. WE ARE TIRED!!

BUT...

I think there is an end of the tunnel shinning ever so dimly our way. I can start to see the illumination of light. About an hour ago our nurse came and hung up a discharge checklist on our wall! Granted, we have two things checked off so far, we now know what needs to be done in order to go home. Initially we were told that the three items to check off were basically, be four pounds(check! we hit 8 today), breathe on their own(our main struggle), and feed on their own(working on it). Now we have an actual list of things to check off and it is much longer and bigger than just three items. Things like be able to give a bath, car seat safety class, know signs of chocking, know signs of under oxygenation, be able to give medication( we only have vitamins, check), etc. I can start crossing off a lot of these small boxes in the next couple weeks! 

 In terms of the three big checks(weight, breathing and eating) we have one out of the way and are working on the last two. Beck has started taking from a bottle. He needs to be able to take a full feeding(just over two ounces, 63cc) from a bottle in under 45 minutes every three hours for 48 hours before we can check off that box. A tall order for such a small boy, but he is a champ and working hard at it. We have worked off of all fortified milk and added proteins. So we are only on straight breastmilk and growing like a weed. In the past 48 hours he has taken 5 full feedings of his 16 offered. So we have a ways to go, but are working hard. I am still pumping all the milk for him. We have a deep freezer at home full of extra milk I have pumped, so we should be set to go! 

OK, BREATHING- this is where Beck is struggling the most. He has been diagnosed with BPD( Broncho Pulmonary Dysplasia). He is still needing oxygen after what is considered a full term baby ( 37 weeks). We are trying to work him off of his nasal cannula, but it has been a struggle. We are currently still on low flow at 1 liter with 22-23% oxygen. We breathe 21% oxygen. SO WE ARE SOOO CLOSE. but he seems to really need those last little wiff's of O's to keep his 02 in the 90's. We are working down again to hopefully try to come off of them some time next week. We will see how he does. If he gets his feeding down pat and is ready to go home in terms of feeding but still needs some oxygen then we will most likely go home with him being on oxygen. We feel confident in understand and working his oxygen, but would love to leave the oxygen here at this place and start fresh new at home with no needed assistance. We will see. 

So obviously our prayer requests are:

*breathing

*eating

*going home

*and rest and healing through it all

We serve a GREAT KING and Beck's whole story/life is a living testament of a risen King, Christ Jesus, who is most deserving of all the glory!

Hopefully we will have more exciting news to post soon (hopefully in four weeks we will have a GRAND announcement)! 

J&A