Time for Change

Every week, the doctors and specialists meet to discuss each baby and their progress. Well, Austin has been a hot topic of debate. Half the doctors want him to have heart surgery to close up his PDA (heart murmer) and the other half don't think he needs it. The half that want surgery say his endurance problems with eating are directly related to his PDA. The other half that don't want surgery say he shows no signs of cardiac arrest or repiritory distress during feedings and all his vitals look good. Dr. Green came up with a plan...try everything possible first before surgery. So a new plan was developed. He changed Austin's feeding plan from every 3 hours on the dot to a cue baby, which means they wait until Austin says he is ready. In between feeding times, they let him sleep and if he doesn't wake up, they wake him up at 4 hours and feed him. They also changed the nipple they use on the bottle, the amount he gets and they added thickner to the milk as well. Since they changed to every 4 hours, he get's 6 feedings a day at 4, 8 and 12 and his bottle feedings are back to back at 12 and 4.

I've been doing better with the nippling. My average was around 30 ml, but now I'm up to the lower 40's. I have a long way to go considering I get 65ml when I nipple now.


Today I weighed 7 pounds 3.4 ounces. March 1st was my original due date and tentative date to go home, but there has been no talk of me going home anytime soon. :-(


Yesterday daddy signed the consent form for my circumcision. Just when I was really beginning to like daddy...


I was outgrowing my basinet so they moved me to a big boy jail crib. They did this so I could be in a crib with all my toys and stuffed animals that I've collected over the past couple months.



And a big step (which mommy and daddy are a little nervous about)...they stopped all medications yesterday. No more diuretics, sodium chloride or iron. Now, I only get vitamins and prilosec.


After they removed all oxygen support, I was always between 97-100% oxygen saturation levels so they decided I no longer needed to be monitored. They took my pulse oximeter off so I have one less cord to get tangled in.