LEVEL II NICU

Today brings more good news for Colton! He has moved from Level III to the Level II NICU! He will eventually discharge to home from here, but he does still have a ways to go. Colton tolerated his feedings just fine yesterday so he was bumped up to 10 mls every 3 hours today. A baby of his weight should get approximately 45 mls every 3 hours. Don't worry, he is continuing to get his TPN in his PIC line to accommodate his needs as he learns to digest food. Colton will not get to try eating by mouth (he currently is feed through a OG --oral gastric--line directly to his belly) until he is past 32 weeks gestational age mark. That milestone of 32 weeks arrives on Valentine's day. They will probably wait a few days past to make sure he is tolerating all well before asking him to suck-swallow-breath. To all my SLP and OT friends...he is showing good signs with sucking the pacifier and bringing one hand to the mouth!

Colton continues to make great forward progress and I am more than thankful for all the wonderful words of encouragement, prayer and support from our family and friends as well as people who don't know us but have learned of us from family and friends. So many people have shared wonderful success stories of their pre-term infants and it gives me a great deal of hope and peace.

My Dad's wife, Joan arrived tonight. My Dad, Nick, will be leaving tomorrow and Joan will be helping us out for this week. I will miss my Dad but I am thrilled to have Joan here to help me out for the week to get things in order for bringing Colton home. I am looking forward to getting more active this week and getting back to driving. I had a "T" incision during the C-section and while it is healing, it is a bit slower than the first C-section with the regular bikini cut.

Finally, I want to thank all my wonderful friend and neighbors who have supplied us with delicious food this past week! I will be getting proper thank you's out to you guys but let me just share with you all what a lifesaver that has been. We are all very appreciative, especially Sydney who has loved all the different dishes and especially desserts!

I hope you like the picture of our little man in his "pimp daddy" hat!

Best wishes and thanks to everyone!

Love,

Wendy, Bret, Sydney and Colton