4 Weeks!

Yesterday we hit the big 4 weeks! 

Owen's Likes:

• Binky! He is definitely becoming a binky baby.
• Sleeping on his belly. His O2 stats are always best on his belly.
• Putting his hand up by his face.  No matter what one hand has to be near his face.
• Nurse Amy.  Amy is one of our favorite nurses. She is absolutely amazing!  Every time she gets in to do his cares and talks to him he looks at her and is so alert for her. She lets us do so much and has taught me so much.  She is the sweetest with him and with us and we couldn't as for better.  We get bummed the days she isn't in our room with us.
• Milk! This kid is up to eating 33 ml of milk within a half hour every three hours. He keeps it down and digests it well.  A month ago we were barely trying out 2 ml and hoping he could tolerate it.
• Mom.  Everytime her hears mom's voice he stirs and moves around. We both love our daily snuggles.
• Listening to football games with dad.  This week he listened to his first football game with dad.  Dad is looking forward to many more football sharing moments in the future. 
• Bath time 

Dislikes:

• Sleeping on his back. Whenever Owen is placed on his back they have to turn up the flow of his oxygen because he desaturates. He is not a fan of sleeping on his back.
• Eye Exams.  Owen had his first eye exam this week on the 16th. He was not a fan in the slightest. Nurse Amy told us we didn't want to be there so we weren't.  They have to force his eyes open in order to check all the vessels and make sure everything is developing correctly.  Good news he passed his first eye exam and won't have to have another for two weeks.
• Temperature Checks. Let's be honest no one likes a cold hard metal temperature gage in the armpit.
• Nasal Cannulas: Owen is continually pulling out the nasal cannulas in his nose that give him the oxygen and air flow. 

Other Highlights:

·         Weight: 1620 Grams or 3 lbs 9.1 oz

·         Sodium: The last couple weeks Owen has been getting extra sodium because his levels weren’t high enough.  The extra sodium caused him to retain water and swell up in his bottom half.  Yesterday they checked his levels and took him off the sodium completely. Where they took him off of it yesterday, today (January 18^th) he lost some of that water and lost 20 grams.  It was expected for him to lose a bit due to the water he was retaining.  However, he is not as swollen and his bottom half of his body is looking much better.

·         Caffeine: When preemies are new to this world they have a hard time multitasking.  This is seen through when they’re sleeping and trying to breathe.  Owen had what’s called Bradycardia spells meaning he stops breathing and drops in all his stats. Those spells are some of the scariest moments when you hear all those monitors go off.  Most the time he would stimulate himself but sometimes the nurses had to stimulate him to remind him to breathe.  These bradycardia spells are cured by giving him extra caffeine.  Owen for the past few weeks has not had any spells the way he did at the beginning. They are slowly decreasing the amount of caffeine they are giving him and will hopefully be off of completely in the next couple weeks.

·         Oxygen: Owen is on low oxygen and oxygen flow.  He has been on 2 liters of oxygen to help with his breathing since they took him off of the cpap around week one.  This week we were weaned down to half a liter! He is rocking it on the half liter and we couldn’t be more excited! This means that soon they will try taking him off of the oxygen to see how he does. Here’s to hoping for the best! 
  

It's weird to think I have a baby that is a month old but if I was still pregnant I would only be 33 weeks along. I am in shock how fast time has gone by.  At the same time, it feels like we have been here forever.  I am so excited our little man has grown so much and is already four weeks old.  However, it makes me so sad that a whole month of his life has gone by and I have had to watch that month go by in a box.  I know it is the best place for him to be but it's hard watching him grow and change so much from a distance.  

We have been told that maybe by the weekend they will start feeding him on a bottle or breastfeeding.  We have been told this is a very long process.  He has to learn to eat and breathe at the same time and keep it all down. Babies born this early struggle to learn to multitask. However, we couldn’t be more excited to be starting this process so soon.  He has been meeting all his milestones like a champ. We are so proud of his strength and how much we have been blessed that he is staying under the radar and doing so well.  Thank you for the continued support and prayers.  We are truly blessed with our little miracle.