Birthday Suit

Two nights ago Jordan did something that he has never done before. He went from 1399 grams to 1498 – in one night. He gained 7% of his body weight in a 24 hour period. His mother and I were sure that there were a bunch of reasons for this. He could have gained water weight if he hadn’t used the diapers enough, it could have been a broken scale which sometimes does happen. However, the nurses were busy enough taking care of 4 babies at once (!). We knew he would be weighed again last night and if the scale was broken, it wouldn’t be the same scale. Well, last night he was 1498 grams again. He is now 3 pounds 4.8 ounces – more than 3 ounces heavier than Sunday night. He won’t do that frequently so don’t get your hopes up, but he has never gained that much that fast before so we are real happy.

Of course, the mama Ali is a bit happier than I am. It turns out that when you reach (or approach) 1500 grams in this NICU, they remove a sensor. When Jordan was real little, he couldn’t maintain his body weight. As he gets bigger, he needs less help from the heater. Now, he is big enough that they remove his temp sensor. They will still manually take his temp every 3 hours (in the armpit). However, he is now large enough to start wearing clothes. I wish I had a camera that could have accurately recorded her smile when she heard that. I actually don’t know if she will want to kangaroo him or dress him up in his outfits tonight. I got to kangaroo yesterday, so she gets to choose today. There will still be a few pictures of him nekkid in the future, but something tells me there won’t be many.

There is only one and a half months until his due date so let me just review the things he needs to accomplish:
1. Maintain his body temp – will come automatically with weight gain.
2. Steadily gaining weight – 67% increase in 3 weeks
3. Take all feeds by bottle – still too immature for feeding, but will make an attempt by the end of the month.
4. No bradys for 5 days before discharge – Has stopped swinging as much and has been better with desatting. The clock for bradys won’t start for a while though.
5. Little or no oxygen support – He gets 3 liters of oxygen every hour. As his lungs grow and mature that will go down. Right now, they are a too small to work properly and he has CLD.
6. Mom and Dad need to take classes – We will be taking CPR soon and the doctor will let us know what other classes to take next month.
7. Pass car seat test – Will be given during his last few days.

Still not yet done but I’d say we’ve made good progress for beginning his 33rd week of gestation. Finally, please answer the poll on the left. Will only last through the 25th.