Sorry for the delay in blogging today - but Gabriel had his eyes open for a couple of hours this morning and I couldn't walk away! In the early days when he had his eyes open, you could tell he was still pretty out of it and unfocused. Now he really looks around and at us, so you can't leave him! It is a pretty nice "problem" to have. I think I finally had breakfast around 11:30! I was also back with him for a while b/c I got lucky enough to be there for the surgeons' visits and the Neonatology rounds. As fortune would have it, the right chest tube slowed pretty dramatically last night. I think they only measured about 58 ml yesterday (He put out 130 ml the day before). He is still tentatively on the surgery schedule for right pleuradesis tomorrow, but if the right chest tube continues along this trend, they might cancel. Other good news: the rate on the vent setting is down to 22 bpm, and Gabe consistently breathes at about 60-70 bpm, so he is doing most of his own breathing. His Oxygen level has been pretty low too, around 30%. He is so close to being weaned, but they can't really extubate (sp?) until he is done with surgery and the chest tubes are at least close to being removed. I didn't think they would take him off the vent until the chest tubes were out, but his nurse today said it depends on the doctor.

I also got to do more with him today. Laura (his nurse) changed his bedding and I got to hold him up (heavy!) while she changed it out. I also got to change him again. After all that, he finally went to sleep, so I slipped out to eat, make some calls, update the blog and pump!