Sunday July 15th

Today was a day with several firsts for the little man! Steve and I went to see Elijah at his 10am feeding this morning. He was awake and ready when we got there, he is really starting to know what his routine is! Elijah took half of his feeding through his bottle, when I was done feeding him Steve held him while he got his tube feeding. Never in my life have I seen anything more precious than my husband holding our son, its amazing to stare at the two most important people in my life and know how blessed I am.

My parents decided they would go see Elijah today and to help us out they went to Elijah's 4pm feeding. My dad hadn't seen Elijah up close so they finally got to have a proper meeting! The occupational therapist was there and fed Elijah, afterwards my mom held him. She said he let out a single squeal that was so loud and unexpected it startled her! Elijah also got dressed for the first time today! He is no longer a little naked baby, I take this as a good sign because it means he is holding his own temperature and hopefully will get moved to an open bed soon! These are all little steps on the road to home!

Steve and I made it to Elijah's 7pm feeding, again he took about 22 mils out of his bottle. At least he is staying steady, maybe tomorrow his numbers will go up little by little until he is taking the whole thing on his own! He looked so dang cute in his outfit! He is a handsome little man and daddy got lots of pictures! We really love the night nurse he has had the past 3 nights, she is the sweetest, most gentle and kind nurse I have ever seen. She talks to him like she would her own child and you can tell she really likes Elijah!

At his 10pm feeding it was kind of crazy in the NICU. Normally its very quiet and dark in there, not a lot of people moving around or talking and if they are its very hushed. I am not sure 100% what was going on but from what I could gather a pretty sick little baby had been brought in on the row behind us, there were lots of alarms going off and nurses, Dr's and EMTs talking. The baby next to Elijah had surgery on Friday and the nurses have to monitor him pretty closely too. Elijah wasn't super awake when we got there, add that to all the noise and he was pretty unhappy and restless. He didn't take a lot of his feeding so we gave most of it to him via NG tube. I called about 30 minutes after we left and his nurse said he had fussed for a few minutes but was sleeping quietly now. I am sure I will be calling to check on him after his 1am feeding!