10 million strong and growing: Week 7 update

Is this a Flintstone's vitamins kid? Wow, what a growth spurt he had this week! Our goal was to let him grow and boy did he ever! My baby is now 16 inches long and weighing in at a hefty 3 pounds 5.7 ounces. You read correctly...we have not only officially crossed the THREE POUND mark, but we've left it in the dust! It must be the breast milk (wink)! Speaking of that, Jaden is getting 10.5 ml/hour of breast milk. He is able to digest it all, but we're a little concerned because he is showing signs of acid reflux. He may have always had a little, but we were unable to see the effects of it with the breathing tube in the way. Which brings me to another great improvement. Jaden was extubated this week. He was placed on CPAP, but didn't last too long. He is now in SiPAP, which is just like CPAP, but it still provides a baseline breath rate for him. He is doing much better on this machine. The plan of action is SiPAP --> CPAP--> Nasal Canula with oxygen, so look forward to these progressive steps in the weeks to come! He's still having the brady spells, but we're hoping they'll be less frequent in weeks to come. He had a pretty big one yesterday. It was uncomfortable to watch, but I'm learning to overlook them. The importance is not whether he has them, but whether he recovers from them, so this is where I'm trying to place my focus! One unfortunate thing that occurred this week is that he is really swollen. I'd been telling the nurses and practitioners for days that his legs and eyes were swollen and they ignored me. He is now on lasix (a diuretic) to bring it down. It had worked for a day or two in decreasing the edema (swelling), but when I bathed him last night they were actually worse. His legs are tight and his big toes are red. It really looks painful and he understandably doesn't like them to be touched. Jaden has a new bed now. The amazing bed he had up to now, is for the tiniest babies, so he had to give it up. He is in a standard isolet now which lacks most of the bells and whistles of the previous one, but we're excited to be one step closer to an open bed and eventually a crib! He no longer has to be constantly warmed. We're able to wrap him in blankets AND dress him! His tiny little outfits are barely bigger than Joe's hands, so you can imagine their adorableness! I no longer have to do Kangaroo care, which I will likely miss at some point, but I love being able to hold him and see his face at the same time.