Day Fifteen Update

BBN is two weeks old today! In some ways it feels like he's been around much longer than that and in other ways it feels like he was just born yesterday. He continues to make slow but steady progress. The doctors are a little surprised that he did not pick up bottle feeding right away since babies usually can handle this by 36 weeks (what BBN will be gestestionally tomorrow) - but given his rocky start they say it makes sense that he is making slower progress than they would otherwise expect. Right now they are offering every other feed by bottle and giving ever other feed by the tube because they don't want to tire him out too much. We hope he will pick up bottle feeding sooner rather than later since that will be one of the main factors determining when he can come home.

BBN also has to start gaining weight a little more consistently so that he can tolerate being in an open air crib to be able to come home. He is hovering close to the 4lb mark, but just can't seem to get over it. He keeps losing and gaining and losing and gaining. That's one of the reasons they don't want to bottle feed him at every feeding - because then he will burn so many calories eating he won't gain weight.

If he starts eating better and gaining weight in the next day or two, the soonest he would be home would be Saturday or Sunday - they need to see some consistency over a 3-4 day period. However, it could also be longer if he doesn't pick up bottle feeding this week. So, we'll just have to wait and see what he does.

We did speak to the moyel today about a bris and found out he needs to be off of oxygen for seven full days and close to 5lbs before he will do it. So it seems that we will have to hold off for a bris and naming - sorry to disappoint everyone. Ilan's bris took place when he was 5 weeks old - hopefully we won't have to wait longer than that this time around!