Progress

First of all. Thank you everyone for all of your kind words and messages. We fall more in love with our sweet boy every time we see him! Finn is doing well overall, but still has a ways to go. He was born at just over 36 weeks, but his lungs were only about 34 weeks. The first thing we noticed when we saw him this morning was how much better his breathing looked. His chest wasn't compressing as much and it didn't look nearly as labored as it had before. His bilirubin level spiked from 6 to 10 to 13 over the first two days, so they started him on phototherapy a.k.a baby sunbathing. Jaundice in newborns is pretty typical- especially when they're early. The good news is that it seems to be working, because his level was already dropping after 12 hours under the lights. They'll most likely keep him under there for the next couple days. The neonatologist gave us a great report this morning saying that he was happy with how his breathing was progressing and his cardiac report came back good. Our little guy is quite the fighter and very strong. It is so sad to watch him fight his tube and scream without making a sound, but his doctor wants to be cautious with taking him off the ventilator as they really wouldn't want to have to put him back on after taking him off again. He is breathing room air (21% O2) and not requiring any additional oxygen and the vent is set to only 15 breaths per minute- meaning he is mostly breathing on his own. Our prayer is that he would have an easy transition off and that there wouldn't be any complications that arise.

We still don't really have a date in sight yet on when the little man will be discharged. If he were to come off the vent tomorrow, he'd most likely stay in the NICU for a couple more days and then move to a step-down unit. Once he's discharged, we don't want to take him straight on a plane, so that would mean a couple more nights in a hotel. It could be anywhere from 1-2 more weeks that we call Kansas home. We are so very thankful for some donated Marriott points courtesy of the Herschend family that are allowing us to stay in a nice extended stay hotel that resembles more of a small apartment. We love our little man to pieces and can't wait to show you just how cute he is without being hooked up to so many monitors. Our doctor suggested we read him some books in addition to just talking to him, so that is just what we did. Here is a picture of Dustin reading him his first book.