Little Baby Eli: Weekend Update

Hi All! We had a good weekend, he's doing great. Here's what happened....

Friday his nurses decided that he was big enough to switch rooms. Basically he was in a room that didn't have any windows so it would be less stimulation. He also was in a room that was close to the nurses station so they could get to him fast if need be. Now that he's a big boy he can be in a room that has a window and a view(so we don't feel like we are in a dark cave when we are there all day with him) and he can be further away from the nurses station because he's more stable. He also transitioned from the micro premi leads for his heart monitor to just the regular premie leads annnd went up a hat size. So Friday was just Eli, Omie, and mama most of the day cause daddy flew down to FL to be with his family. Friday night while I was holding him, the nurse let me pick the Pandora station that was being piped into all the rooms, clearly I chose Backstreet Boys. So we rocked out to a lot of 90's pop, I'm sure I got judged a lot. On Friday he was still not getting any milk because he had to be off the indocin for 24hours before the resumed feedings. They just told me tonight that he screamed so loud because he was hungry friday night, that they could hear him all the way at the other end of the hall. Quiet a feat seeing as when he was born, you could barely hear him crying when you were sitting in the chair right next to the isolette. But still, after hearing this I felt so bad I started crying..poor hungry baby :(

Saturday we came in and found out he was having some instability with his temperature. He was ranging from 100.3 - 96.8. Not good for a baby who was maintaining his temp no problem for the last few days. On Saturday, his nurse was a new grad nurse who had just gotten off orientation. All the other nurses new that and though she seemed like a great nurse, they were in checking on her and the baby any time she was in the room. Which made me feel really good. One nurse got the doctor in the room as soon as she saw what was going on with the temperature and had them do an X-Ray of his belly and take a blood. Even though his vitals were fine, she says you never trust a baby in the NICU. I love our nurses they take such good care of him and us. And he has a few nurses that he knows their voices just like he knows ours. Anyway all of the tests came back negative and he started getting back his 15 cc's of milk at 430 last night. Omie and Grampa were there all day andddd Omie got to hold him. Omie has been taking such good care of me and him. Laundry, Food, slippers, taking pictures, basically everything making life a lot easier in general. Grampa too cooking breakfast, hanging with Eli, dishes. We are super blessed to have them in our lives.

This morning Grampa made us yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Almost as good as Opa's. We went over to the hospital before church and daddy got some cuddle time. He was so alert, his eyes were open for almost 45 minutes. We could see him looking around and responding to our voices. The doc came in and decided he wanted a repeat abd xray before he increased the feedings, just to be sure everything was ok. He had a little bit of blood in his stool, but this is pretty common due to the tubes causing irritation. So the baby was squirmy when they took the xray and caused the xray to look like something was possibly a problem, so he had to have another xray to investigate. Jon and I went to church and Grampa held down the fort. Everything ended up fine, and he is up to 18 cc's of milk every three hours. Yesterday he weighed 3lbs 15oz. We left before they weighed him today but he should be at the four pound mark. His murmur is still present, will have a repeat echo on Tuesday to see whats going on. But his vitals are great so we aren't super concerned. Had an amazing dinner, thanks Cindy that cake was phenomenal!!

And Im done blabing, now what you all really want to see....

new room