Day 17 – A very happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day! When we came in this morning all of the nurses who are mothers were wearing tiaras, and had extra tiaras for all of the newborn’s mothers. So Kristi walked around all day today as queen for a day, and had the crown to prove it. Corin, being the ever thoughtful child he is, gave his mother some of the best news she could ask for on her special day.

Corin has had a FANTASTIC 24 hours. At his weight check this morning he tipped the scales at 6 pounds, 13.2 ounces, which is up almost 3 ounces in one day. The nurses also said that last night he had pulled out his feeding tube. So they fed him with the bottle and he took all of it. So at the next feeding they left the tube out, fed him with the bottle and he took all of it. So at the next feeding they left the tube out, fed him with the bottle and he took all of it. I could type that sentence five more times. He has now had his last eight feedings all from the bottle, eating all he needs, and his feeding tube remains out! Our plan is to keep feeding him with the bottle and just work on breast feeding when we are able to get him home. That should reduce the amount of time we spend here at the NICU.

The only real downside of the new eating routine is that we let him rest the entire time between meals, so we don’t hold him at all except at meal time. In the time between meals we let him sleep and just sit by his side. Pop and Lola came for a visit today and even they had to forgo their holding time so that little Corin could get his rest.

Getting him home seems to be fast approaching. They gave him his hepatitis-B vaccine today, along with a hearing test (which he passed), and will be giving him a test in his car seat tonight. These are all things that they do just prior to releasing babies from the NICU. We are trying to remain cautiously optimistic. However the cautious part can be a little hard and we are leaning more towards wildly optimistic. We are hearing and hoping that within the next 24-48 hours we will be able to leave the hospital and take our son with us. We’ll keep you posted!