Miller's growing. He's up to 4 lbs, 13 oz. He's taking all of his feeds on his own (8 per day) and has been since the 15th. Supposedly, this is somewhat surprising for his gestational age (34 weeks, 5 days). Tonight he was very alert and even had some smiles for us. We caught at least one smile on video (above)...right at the end.

We don't want to jinx anything, but it's possible that Miller could come home earlier than we thought. He's eating, breathing, growing, maintaining temp...just needs a little boost of oxygen here and there. We're a little nervous for him to come home early, since they may send him home with oxygen and a monitor. We may never sleep again. We'll see what happens this next week!

As always, we love your comments & emails, and give thanks for all of your prayers.

Love,

Danny & Stephanie

Miller had a great weekend! At last report, he weighed 4 lbs 10.5 ozs! He's now taking all of his feedings by bottle; 42 cc's of milk every three hours and he really gets after it. In fact, we have to make a conscious effort to slow him down at times. He is such a little piglet.

We're interested to see how Miller reacts without his little shot of caffeine. He was supposed to get his last dose a couple of days ago, but they extended it through yesterday. In a way, he has been weaning himself off of it just by growing. He has more than doubled since birth, but his caffeine dose has been the same. He's doing so much of his own work right now (breathing, eating). He'll probably be a little groggy for the next few days and may not eat as vigorously until he adjusts. We just hope he can continue to take the bottle so we don't have to reinsert his feeding tube.

He is also down to a one-liter flow on his cannula. This won't mean much to anyone, but up until yesterday he was on a two-liter flow. This really just means he's one step closer to losing that thing for good! In the photo above he is cannula and gavage free!

Davika, one of our All Star Nurses, is going on vacation for the next couple of weeks. We're really going to miss her, but her break is well deserved. She's not going to recognize him when she returns. If only we could get Beth (his day primary) to work round the clock. He always seems to be doing great when she is there and it is easy to relax on her watch.

Special thanks to Uncle Bob for the ESPN Magazine subscription!

Love,
Danny & Stephanie