Prayers Are Needed!

Good news....Taylor is almost 4 lbs now. Last night he weighed 3 lbs, 15.4 ounces. Tonight we are sure he will be at the 4 lb mark if not a few ounces above that.

Not so good news....we met with the physical therapist regarding his issue with eating. She gave us some exercises to use to try and help Taylor along with bottle feeding. He's now up to 35 cc's of milk every 3 hours and can only manage to take down about 5-15 cc's. Some of the feeding times he won't even take the bottle (he's too tired). Spoke with the doc today about this. Doc said he's not surprised after all that Taylor has been through. Even though Taylor is now 38 weeks, he's acting like a 33 week old baby. This means it's going to be a slow process. At the earliest, he would come home around 41 weeks and that's only if he's taking at least half of all of his feedings 100 % by bottle. That will take time to get to that point. At 44 weeks, the doc will start talking to us about feeding options at home if Taylor is not meeting this goal by then. This would require a small procedure to insert a feeding tube directly into his tummy. WE DO NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN. We must pray that Taylor will learn to bottle feed on his own in the coming weeks. Josh and I are just in shock to learn that we may be here for 6 MORE WEEKS!!!! We really thought Taylor would progress as Laynie did with feeding.

Doc said he's seen babies "flick a switch" and begin taking down feedings by bottle over night and others take it really slow. Let's pray that Taylor can turn this around soon.

Love,
Josh and Angie

Taylor's Weight Gain

He's now 3lbs, 12.8 ounces. We are SO happy about his weight gain. We are very hopeful that this trend will continue. He should be moving to a crib soon. He's been keeping his temp in the incubator so they will test him in the crib. His biggest challenge right now is eating. He's still not doing so well with his coordination (breathe, suck, swallow). We are meeting with a physical therapist early this week to see what more we can be doing to help him. He's SOOO close, yet seems so far away from coming home. We had high hopes that he'd come home by his term date (Oct 11th), but it's not looking like that at this point. We expected that each day he would progress with his feedings, but that's not the case. He gets 33 cc's of breast milk and can only take about 5-15 via the bottle. On good days it's 15 and then the next day it may only be 5. We know that things can change over night and we are praying that it does with this. He needs to eat to come home!!!!

We are VERY anxious to have both our babies at home. We need to work really hard with Taylor each day to help him to progress. Please continue your prayers for our homecoming.

Love,
J & A

Mommy's Boy

Daddy's Girl

Our Little Peanut Is Growing!

Last night Taylor weighed 3 lbs, 10.2 ounces. Yippee! I'm sure he will weigh more than that tonight. His big sis is now 5 lbs, 12.5 ounces. As promised here are some pics of Taylor.

Taylor Update

Things are still going well, although he's not gaining weight like we hoped. He's at 3 lbs, 7.2 ounces. At my last post on the 20th he was 3lbs, 6.8 ounces so you can see what I mean. He should be gaining several ounces each night on his current diet. Doc says he's burning tons of calories just breathing, pooping, crying, etc. His metabolizim is high and doc said probably will remain that way through out his life. He will probably always be a little guy especially since he was growth restricted in the womb. We are ok with that as we are a "tiny" family, including our dog...hee! hee! We just want to get home at this point. He's still struggling with eating. We are praying each night that we'll go in and see some progress. Over the past several days he hasn't made any so we are very hopeful that things will turn around soon. We were hoping he'd be coming home in the next few weeks, but it's looking like it will be longer at this point. As promised, I will get pics of him out on the blog soon.

Love,
J & A

Computer Access

Hello Everyone - Our wireless access is down. It has made it harder for me to get to a computer to post. So, sorry! All is wonderful. Taylor is off of his oxygen and doing amazing with breathing on his own. He's working on bottle feeding and getting better as each day progresses. He's not gaining weight as quickly as all would have hoped. Tonight he didn't gain at all. Doc is watching closely and has put him on a higher calorie diet. We'll see what the next few days brings. He's 3 lbs, 6.8 ounces. He's still not able to hold his own temp so won't move to a crib quite yet.

Josh and I are VERY anxious to get home. Especially with Laynie being at the housing with us. It's very small and I think we're all driving each other nuts at this point. There's a lot you just have to laugh about and know that one day we'll look back on all of this and say "how did we do it"?

Laynie is up to 5 lbs, 6 ounces. She's Miss Piggy....she has chubby cheeks and a double chin now. Crazy!

Love,
Ang and Josh