Only for Feeds

Wearing my new hat that Anne made for me!

(look-no tape)

Another closeup-its hard to juggle the phone and him so the pics are a little blurry!

Sorry it's been a few days! Chase is doing fantastic:) He still requires just a little bit of oxygen for eating, but otherwise he has been off the cannula altogether! He now takes 50 ccs every time he eats. He is even relatively cooperative while taking his medicine in a bottle before he nurses. Some of his preemie sleepers are getting pretty snug, and we may only get a few more days out of them. He's almost 5lbs now!

House Update-

Hopefully the nursery will be complete in the next few days, I'm posting this while waiting for the carpet guys to come do the stairs and cubbies upstairs. I'll be adding some house pics soon.

One more thing, although we talked to them over the weekend-Happy Birthday to Dad and Tim this past Friday, and Pat on Saturday! Yes, we grew up with three birthdays within two days in our house, and when you are little you don't want to share a cake with anyone.

On my own-No Assistance Needed

Passed out

I still have to keep my tape for a little while!

Around 12:15 today Chase was taken off the cannula. When I got there for his 2pm feeding he had been doing well, but coordinating eating without any support was going to be a little work on his part. His sats were all over the place when I gave him his bottle with his medication, and he was pretty sleepy. I had to monitor his coloring and give keep him moving around to make sure he was stimulated. I can't nurse him until he takes his medicine first. He had sodium, iron, and potassium mixed with a little of my milk in the bottle. After he finally finished his medicine, during which time he did have one brady, it was time for his regular feeding. After a slow start he ended up doing really well, with no bradys and overall only a few desats. Keep going Peanut!

Going tubeless!

Finally Alexandra gets to hold him!

Even though I just posted yesterday morning I feel like there is a lot to cover. In addition to it being two months since Chase was born, yesterday was also my work shower. I was excited to share news of his milestones with so many new and old friends. Although it was hard for me not to make a dish for my own party, I couldn't have been happier when I saw that they had gotten Wawa hoagies! Many people originally from NJ living down here share my sentiments:) After all the treats I had my work cut out for me with all of the presents. A huge thanks to everyone for all of the cute things. Now we just have to figure out where to put everything. Chase is going to be well dressed and have lots of fun when he comes home.

That leads me to our next bit of news...He had his feeding tube removed today, and tomorrow they are going to try him off of the cannula! Jas made it in time for rounds and they told him we should bring in his car seat soon. Bringing in the car seat is a huge step. Time and time again we see families bring in car seats and we know their child is about to be discharged. One of the criteria for discharge is that Chase will have to pass the "car seat test". He has to be able to sit in the car seat for an hour without having an issues. Also, once we meet with the cardiologist next week we should hopefully be pretty close to getting a date. Chase will most likely still need to be on diuretics, potassium, and sodium when he comes home, and but all of those things are manageable. I'll post a photo of him without any "equipment" tomorrow morning!

Today besides receiving wonderful news we had some more visitors. Jas' mom, stepdad, sister, and grandmother came to visit. Aunt Xandy got to hold Chase for the first time and Jas' MomMom met her first great grandchild. Chase will call her GiGi when he gets older:) Alexandra is all ready to babysit for us, and she even showed me her certification card from her babysitter training class. She took the class twice so she is ready to go!

Milestone

I received the morning update from Jas a little bit ago-he officially went 24 hrs, without having a brady!!!

2 months old!

Today Chase is two months old. Can you believe it? As of yesterday he was also 4lbs. 90z. I anticipate when he gets weighed today that he'll be officially double his birth weight! Although we still don't have a discharge date, we know there is only a short time left before he comes home. This couldn't make Jas and I more happy. We continue to be amazed by his progress on a daily basis, and as you can see from the number of pictures in the gallery thus far, we've tried to document his journey for you all:)

There have only been a few changes to the orders recently. He now is receiving all of his feedings p.o. and the flow on his cannula is going to be decreased to 1.5 L. You might be thinking these sound familiar-we did have a few little bumps in the road where the orders were written last week, but he ended up tuckering out with some of the changes so we're shooting to see how he does again now. Since he was switched off the heated cannula, we haven't had to deal with the "rain out" where he was getting water up his nose when the tubes were moved around. He also received his first set of vaccinations last night. One last update-the cardiologist isn't back from vacation til next week, so more information will come then.

A little side note-the little man is quite gassy, and even though I've started to watch a little more carefully what I eat(I can't give up spicy stuff all together) its a good thing he doesn't have a roommate right now, because he can knock you out some days. Too much information right? We've filled you in on so many of the details of his life since the beginning, so we figured no turning back now!!

Our Little Marsupial

The little man likes to sleep all curled up in a ball on your chest. This reminded us of our trip to the San Diego Zoo in May. We think the comparison pics are pretty cute, just like him!

5lbs Here I come!

I almost have a double chin:)

Happy after my late morning snack!