Starbucks please!!!!

Nate has had an eventful week this past week with some ups, and some bumps in the road...exactly what the nurses and doctors told us, 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Nate has been steadily progressing this week in his weight. As of today he is 3 pounds 15 ounces, so we're expecting him to hit 4 pounds tomorrow or Wednesday. He has some good #2's so they are very impressed that his insides are working smoothly. Good news....Joe has changed 2 #2 diapers!!! Good job dad :) This picture was the first day Nate was feeling very alert for a good chunk of time. We thought he looked like he belongs in the movie "Elf!"


On Thursday or Friday of last week Nate's oxygen levels started dipping a little bit. He had been on a caffeine drip that was removed on Monday. Apparently this drip is fairly common with preemies to help them with apnea and oxygen levels. Well, near the weekend Nate's numbers started to go down so they decided to put him back on the caffeine drip....who doesn't need a little Starbucks to get ya goin in the mornings?

Once those oxygen numbers started going down they decided to run other tests on him to make sure nothing else was going on. They ran blood tests, cultures, urine tests, and all sorts of others I wouldn't be able to explain properly. Needless to say, after lots of tests and waiting for cultures, Nate has been diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. They told us it's also really common in preemie boys as well. He's on an antibiotic right now to help him fight the infection. We had to wait awhile for the cultures to come back so that was a little anxiety provoking. Especially, when they started talking about other tests they would have to do if the bacteria proved to be more infectious, like a spinal tap, yikes! Thankfully, it's not that severe and the antibiotics seem to be doing the trick. The good news along the way has been that Nate has not shown any signs clinically to be sick. His temperature stays around 98 degrees, he keeps his food down, isn't overly fussy, and is still active and alert....all good signs he's not feeling ill.

Once Nate is done with the antibiotics towards the end of this week they will be doing a test on his kidneys to make sure they are functioning ok and that his tubes inside (that's my medical terminology) are all hooked up well and will not cause him to have urinary tract infections in the future or other issues. The nurse told us they always do these tests after a baby has an infection so it's a normal thing to do. This test should happen on Thursday or Friday this week.

We can't get enough of putting Nate in hats that he might yell at us for later in life. It really does crack us up but I think he can totally pull off the look! Oh, and Nate also had to have the oxygen tubes put back in his nose for a day or two just to get his numbers a little higher but they are steady now so the tube got to come out.

This picture is just to prove that he does have hair on that head! We always cover it up with the hats to make sure he's nice and warm out of his incubator, but there is the hair. In the past week his head circumference went from 10 to 11 1/2. We are trying to get more pictures with his eyes open but they keep his area of the room pretty dark and we don't want to flash the camera at him. He is much more active and alert though than he has been in the first week or so, so that is great. His personality is pretty laid back and he's quite easy to soothe at this point. He still has the feeding tube in his nose that goes in to his stomach, but he's starting to get cranky 20-30 minutes before his feedings so that's a good sign. Over the past 3-4 days Nate has really started to grab on to his pacifier all on his own which is quite impressive considering he would have only been 34 weeks this Wednesday.

I was lucky enough to be able to go home to Monroe on Saturday for a lovely baby shower thrown by my Aunt Donna and cousin Ashley. I just have to say thanks to them and my entire family for the fun day. It was so nice to have one day to be around my nutty nutty family.........and really ladies, you kept the nuttiness rolling for me which made my day. Below is a picture of how everything is "set up" in our home right now! It makes for wonderful before pictures. I can't say thanks enough to everybody for thinking of us, getting us gifts, sending cards, and all of the prayers. Thank you to our friends, and family friends who dropped gifts off as well. I was definitely overwhelmed and surprised by it all this weekend and so thankful. Can't wait to post pictures once we have everything settled in a bit more and not just in giant piles in our living room and garage but actually set up in Nate's room! Thanks again to everybody just for thinking of us and it was great to see some of you this past weekend!