Good Boy Hunter

Hunter's weight: 3 lbs, 1 oz
Hunter's length: 15 1/2 inches

Since Hunter was born he has gained about half a pound and has grown about an inch and a half. He's getting so big, it seems like only yesterday he was a little red guy tied down to his bed with a hundred wires attached to him. Now he's slightly larger, slightly more ordinarily colored, and doesn't have as many wires attached to him.

Everything is going pretty well today, not much has changed again. We're still waiting for the big challenge of switching him over to the conventional ventilator. He's been moved to the ventilator twice before but both times has had to step back to the oscillator.

There isn't a schedule for when they are going to try this. The doctor's always say "It's up to him." This is convenient for me because now I don't have to ask questions - I already know the answer.

Now for something gross. They are still feeding Hunter 4ml of milk every 4 hours. They have to keep a close eye on feeding preemies because sometimes they don't digest their food. If the baby doesn't digest the food it can lead to the awful sounding Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Hunter has been doing very well at digesting his milk until today. After he was fed this morning they found 1ml of milk left in his belly. Of course they have to get this out of his belly, I don't know how, but they did. Here's the extra gross part, guess what they do with it... they feed it back to him. EEEEWWW!

He's digesting better now, they haven't had to refeed him since lunchtime.

When I visited him today he was trying to open his eyes. It was amazing to see this so I ran over to get my camera. I got a short movie of him peeking around and examining his home. I can't even describe how amazing it is to be able to look into his little eyes.

The movie is quite loud. You can hear his oscillator machine (very loudly) in the background and the nurse asking if she can work on him without getting in the way of my picture :)