The Last Week

Over the last week, Jonathan has made some amazing progress! His weight had dropped initially (to a low of about 3 lbs 8 oz), as if typical after a baby is born, and he has steadily been gaining weight back and finally has reached his birth weight again of 4 lbs 1 oz. In addition, he has steadily been liberated from many of the tubes and cables that were attached to him. Jonathan's jaundice is gone, so he no longer must sit under the bili light, and his tube feeds were increased so that he now gets all of his nutrition through his GI tract. With his bilirubin down and his GI feeds up, Jonathan's IV also was taken out. Jonathan's breathing has been great as well, and so he is no longer on oxygen, and they have taken the probe off of his foot that monitors his oxygen. In addition, he is doing a great job of keeping his temperature up in the incubator. Each day, the temperature of his incubator has been decreased an it now has reached 28 celsius. If he can keep his body temperature up for 24 hours, he then will be allowed to move to a crib, leaving behind the incubator. At this point, he only has some EKG leads on his chest to monitor his heart and breathing, and a small tube down his nose for feeding. He looks so much more comfortable with the tubes and wires removed. Jonathan also is beginning to eat more by mouth, now trying to eat 3 times per day from the bottle/breast in addition to his tube feeds. To go home, he will need to get all of his nutrition by mouth and have no spells of decreased heart rate or lack of breathing. He is well on his way to this point, and could well go home much earlier than originally expected.