April 7 Post

Hello everyone,

I started back to work today as much as I can. Kristi went up around lunchtime and spent a couple hours with Carter. He was awake and fidgity. The nurse indicated his bilirubin was elevated and they were working on it. The nurse wasn't sure if it was his liver needing to catch up with the change in feeding or an infection.

The nurse also got Carter to start sucking on a binky today. I went up at 4:00 today and stayed until about 5:30. I helped Carter suck on his binky and talked to him and held his hands for the longest time. He also opened his eyes to look around. The binky thing is a big step because this will help him eat when he comes home.

Carter is up to 20cc of milk and is being tube fed every 3 hours. They hope to wean him from his IV feed into his belly button and rely more on the milk sometime this week. This will cause him to lose some weight and he is expected to go below his birth weight and then come back up again.

He still is using a CPAP to help him breathe but his hands are clear from being pricked.

He also cried a little more than previously which means his lungs are coming along but we still have a ways to go. If he can get off the CPAP machine, they'll put in a canula with a high-flow of oxygen and then a regular canula.

We'll get some fresh pictures tomorrow and send a couple to you. Thank you for all your prayers and support. Carter is doing better because of your prayers and thoughts.

Love,
Alan & Kristi