Shabbat Shalom: Happy 6 week birthday and 3lbs!

Jules is 6 weeks old. The diuretics seem to be working, his oxygen requirement is down to 32% and he's has safely cleared the 3lb mark! Joy held him for a while today and he stayed very happy and oxygen saturated. This is a good end to a fairly stressful week that began with fluid retention.

I think the big picture now is that we're working on 2 things. Get him breathing on room air and more slowly and getting him to start feeding orally. The breathing thing is going to go on for at least a month. Basically all the oxygen pumped into his lungs over the last 40 days or so ends up damaging his lungs and creating scar tissue. Also he has started reataining fluids (in his lungs) this compounds the problem. This means he continues to need more oxygen. To address this - for real - he needs to grow and create new lung tissue. That takes time and diuretics.

He also needs to learn to feed orally. This means he has to coordinate the suck-swallow-breath mechanism. Typically this happens around 32weeks (he's 35 1/2 weeks now). But he's small and his lungs are small and he hasn't really shown an affinity to the pacifier. This is something to work on.

My dad's sister and her son are visiting. More fun for Gigi.