Our little trooper

Finn is doing great. Stacey, Sam and Dillon stopped by to see Finn for a little bit (Dillon is too young to come into the NICU, though). They took the CPAP off today, so now he just has a nose tube providing extra oxygen. But other than that, he is completely breathing on his own! I never dared hope he would be doing this well at only FIVE days old. When we were there this morning, he was having a little trouble remembering to breathe regularly, but was able to "remember" after a few seconds. The nurse only had to pat his butt once, which is really good. A "spell" is when the nurse has to remind him to breath. He only had three so far today.

The other piece of good news is that they fed him some of my milk this morning and he tolerated it! Again, babies his age are not supposed to be able to do this yet, so it is great news. They are going to try to give him a little more tonight to see how that goes. The good thing about him taking my milk, is that now he can start to gain weight (not immediately, but eventually). He weighs one pound, 11.5 ounces as of this morning.All the good news worries me a little because I'm waiting for the bad news, but I think that is pretty common. Don't worry, I am enjoying the good news as it comes. They took him off the photo-therapy for a while when were there today and took his goggles off. He just looks like a normal baby and I ache to just grab him and leave (don't worry...I won't!). He even opened his eyes for a long while and looked around and tried to see where the voices were coming from. I could just stare at him for hours.

Finn may be small, but he is strong and clearly a fighter. We count our blessings every day.