Still looking up!

He has done well with his first meals, so they upped to 15 ml and will go up to 20 ml later today. Still no breast milk, but maybe by tonight if he continues to tolerate the pregestinil and the chest tube output doesn't increase. We have kind of taken over the module freezer, so the nurses really hope he gets to start breast milk soon. The vent settings continue to be tweaked down and he has been weaned a litle more from his sedation meds. Dr. Duffy said his chest xray looked good, so I have all positives to report.

One possible issue the nurses are watching - his temp was up a little bit this morning and his secretions are up a little bit (they are having to suction him a little more). She said if it didn't go down in the next hour, she would get blood and urine cultures to check for infection. They say every day you are here, the risk for infection exists. We have talked to many families who have had to deal with that, rather unexpectedly (but I guess if the risk is always there, it really shouldn't be unexpected, but that is life in the NICU). So far we have dodged that bullet, we'll see what the day brings us! Thanks for the comments, we are excited about Gabe's progress and love hearing everyone celebrate with us!

I am posting some pictures from Gabriel's first tube feeding and some other misc. pics from the past weekend (yes, I am a bit behind).