Cole

These top photos are the most recent of little Cole. Tonight when we arrived to see him he was wide awake and very alert and active. He has spent alot of time just sleeping, which is a very good thing, but it was also really neat to see him awake. It continues to amaze me how much better he continues to look after short periods of time.

We've been really busy these last few days and it has been hard to find time to do anything but stare at, hold, care for, and love our little Cole. I don't see our attention shifting to anything else very soon.

As you can see in the pictures, he still has one big obstacle to overcome before he can go home. He is currently being fed through a tube that goes up his nose and down his throat. He needs to learn how to eat on his own. The reflexes to suck don't develop until 36-37 weeks in the pregnancy, so he is just now approaching that time. Unfortunately they say that while girls learn rather quickly, little boys prefer to just let you pour their food in and aren't as interested in doing it on their own. That struck a little guilt in his daddy, who still prefers to be fed rather than feeding himself. He may never grow out of that one either.

To give a report on the past couple days: Krysten got to come home last night so now we both run back and forth to the hospital and home. We changed his little diaper and Krysten gave him a bath last night. He was pretty alert and awake the whole time so we got to see him with his eyes open quite a bit. I am very pleased to see he has Krysten's eyes.



Here's another good look at him. He was on a biliblanket (the glowing blue light behind him) to help reduce his bilirubin levels so he doesn't get jaundice too bad. They were anticipating he would get a little jaundice because of his black eye. Today his bilirubin levels were lower so he is off the light and they'll keep an eye on it.


He also got his IV out because he is recieving full feedings now and doing so very well. Premature babies lose a little weight after birth and they like for them to be back above their birth weight within 2 weeks and our little guy is already there. He only lost weight one day and has continually gained since. He continues with a pattern of "doing amazingly well, way better than expected" to use the Pediatrician's own words. We love hearing reports like that.