Monday's Update

Hello,
It's so hard to believe that we've been here 3 weeks already. Although the pregnancy and birth feels like eons ago, it doesn't seem like 3 weeks has passed us already.

Braden just had his hearing screening....something that's usually done right after birth, but given the circumstances, other things took precident over his newborn screens. He did pass...yeah! I listened in when the doctors did their rounds. It sounds like his red blood cell count was a smidge lower than where they'd like it to be, so they're going to give him a little bit of blood. We were reassured that this is "typical" and "normal." After the blood is given, he'll get his PICC line out of his leg and he'll be free (somewhat). He'll only be hooked up to a heart monitor and his pulsox (sp?). The pulsox measures the oxygen saturation in his body. The only medication he'll be on now (and when he goes home) is a blood pressure medication, aspirin, and a diaretic. He is continuing to do well on his oral feeds. If he continues to do this well, they're looking at pulling out his feeding tube tomorrow or Wednesday.......hopefully tomorrow. They haven't given us a timeline yet, but it sounds like maybe by this weekend or early next week we could look at going home. Home........where we belong....it's so nice to finally be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I will try and post later tonight. If not, be assured that no news is good news :-) As for pictures, we can't download here at the hospital, so we're going to have to wait on sending them. We can't wait to share him though.....he looks great....you would never know that he just spent the first month of his life going through one of the biggest surgies anyone could endure.

Thanks for thinking of us, praying for us, and keeping us strong.

Much love,
Steph