Isaac is huge! He decided to finally start gaining some weight. In two days he put on 5-6 oz. When I first saw him yesterday, he actually looked bigger--I could see a difference.

He's taken all of his food orally for over 48 hours. Yay! He's gained weight for the last 3 days in a row(he's now 5 lbs 5.5 oz). Yay! This weekend they are going to switch him to the regular cannula. Yay!

If he keeps doing what he's doing, Isaac will be given the green light to go home at his evaluation next Friday. That doesn't mean he'll be coming home immediately, but it should be very soon thereafter.

They really don't want to send him home on O2--apparently it's complicated to manage--so they want to see if he really needs it before he comes home. Once he's on the cannula, they will do trials off the O2 to see how he does under stress. If he doesn't desat under stress, then he really shouldn't need the O2.

Crazy!

I'm totally fine with him coming home on the O2--whatever gets him home, I totally don't care if it's cumbersome.

Isaac is still doing awesome with nursing. Because it is so crucial for him to get the necessary calories to grow, I'll only be able to nurse him 2-3 times a day when he's home. The rest of the time, we'll need to give him bottles of fortified breast milk. The idea is that we'll gradually zone out the bottles, but there's no guarantee that we'll ever be able to do that. Breast milk is only 20 calories an ounce and he's having trouble growing with fortified 30 calories an ounce. We'll see I guess.

My head is just spinning. I can't believe we are finally getting to this point. I am so ready to move on to the next chapter in all of this. It's crazy to me to think that if things had gone as planned, we wouldn't even have a baby yet.

We feel like we've run a marathon before the race has even begun.

I'm essentially completely independent now at the hospital. I do everything for Isaac when I'm there. The nurses totally give me my space to care for him which is nice. They don't come running over if he desats, or if he's crying--they let me handle it which I really appreciate. If I close my eyes (and ears sometimes--the NICU is loud) I can almost pretend that I am just caring for Isaac at home. Almost. :)

My friends threw me a baby shower last night and it was wonderful (Thanks again ladies). It was so nice to be able to celebrate a little bit (and get such cute little clothes for Isaac).

Even though I'd rather him not be on the O2 when he comes home, it's going to feel really strange if he doesn't need any medical intervention at all. Almost as if this whole experience never happened. I'm sure there will be an adjusting period, but we are beside ourselves excited to get him home.

We love him so much and are so excited to be a complete family. I can't wait to love Isaac the way I've wanted to all this time.