Aiden is two months old.  I sighed with relief while typing that sentence.  He hit big milestones after he recovered from his infection. And we’re happy to share great news:

1. Today was the last day of oral antibiotics.  He is now infection-free!
2. He weighs 1,960 grams (over 4 pounds)!  He is finally looking more like a term baby with his baby fat.  He’s less sensitive and more tolerant of our touch.  I love to stroke his toes and rub his back softly.
3. The roof of his incubator has been removed.  Because he is over 1,800 grams, he can regulate his own body temperature.  He’s also more tolerant of light and noise.  He now wears preemie size clothes!
   

   
4. The doctors reduced his CPAP to level 7.  The next steps for him are to go to 6, 5, then either high-flow (oxygen just under his nose) or completely removed from CPAP over the course of a few weeks.  THAT MEANS THE AWFUL MASK ON HIS FACE WILL BE COMPLETELY REMOVED. There will be a celebration once it happens!

   

5. His feeds have increased with his body weight.  He’s at 25 mLs every two hours.  Aiden has always struggled with gas from the CPAP mask and nutrients they added to my breast milk.  This required each feed to be given over 1 hour.  He moved to 45 minutes today and so far handled it well.  They will continue to lower it.
6. Aiden turns 34 weeks gestation tomorrow.  He’s six weeks away from his due date!

Aiden has to master two things in order to go home:

1. Breathe on his own.  No assisted oxygen and he cannot have any desats or bradys.
2. Breastfeed.  This is a process for preemies.  They don’t know how to coordinate suck, swallow and breathe.  Learning to do this is compared to a marathon for adults.  Preemies are exhausted easily and fall asleep.  Our nurse today said he’d probably be a natural because of how much he loves his soother, I hope so!  I am really getting sick of pumping every 3 hours.

And today is a special day for Eric! Happy First Father’s Day.  He is such a loving dad to Aiden (from day 1) and I’m thankful Aiden has a good role model in his life.  I see great things in our future with this man.