Almost 8 weeks old!

Charlie will be 8 weeks old tomorrow - hard to believe! He's getting bigger all the time, and continuing to breathe well at room rate. His nurse today asked the doctors if they could start trialing him off the C-PAP when they do his cares, every few hours, and the doctors agreed. So hopefully he'll do well with the trials and work up to more and more time breathing on his own until he can get rid of the C-PAP for good! He'll enjoy that much more, and his little nose will be back to normal; the tubes are helping his lungs, but make his little nose kind of swollen, as you can see!

After a smooth start to the week, Charlie had some rough days toward the end - by Thursday, they had worked back up to 19 ccs of milk each feeding, and he wasn't tolerating it well; in fact, Thurs evening, he spit most of his feeding back up all over his isolette. He was also looking very bloated, and retaining a lot of water. By Friday, his weight was up to 1807 grams, or 3 pounds, 15 ounces. As much as we want Charlie to hit that 4 pound mark, the doctors and nurses were concerned that he had gained way too much too quickly (he gained almost 200 grams in one night - not a good sign). So poor Charlie was put on the fasting diet once again, and resumed getting his nutrition via IV. He also had a catheter put in so they could monitor his fluid output. Friday he was very cranky and agitated (as I would be, if I wasn't being fed, not to mention dealing with a catheter) and his belly was still quite bloated, so it was not a fun day.

So far, the doctors aren't sure why he's having such a hard time eating - there are lots of possible theories, but no obvious cause. But they have started feeding him again, this time with an elemental formula, which is basically formula in its most broken down form, so it should be easy for his system to process but still will provide him what he needs. It seems to have calmed him back down, and his belly looks much better now as well, thank goodness. He's tolerating the formula so far, so they're working his volume up slowly and will continue to monitor him. He did lose 28 grams last night, which was a good sign that he's finally starting to let some of the water go.

As always, he's an amazingly strong little guy. He just never stops fighting, even when he's hungry and uncomfortable! I got some good photos of him on Friday hiding his face from my camera, and some others of him in another cute new shirt:



Charlie also got to meet lots of new friends this weekend! He had visits from Molly and John from Atlanta, Sarah from Seattle, Paula from Mississippi, Laura from Philadelphia, and Stephanie and Mark who live here. What a popular boy!