His first bottle!!!

What a triumph! Tonight, Cooper took his first bottle of breast milk. It was only 3 mLs, but he actively drank it, and took all of it. We'll have to see how it settles, but it's so encouraging and heartening to me that he drank it. Cooper's amazing dad did an outstanding job feeding and encouraging him, and I got to watch over video chat. It was just incredible. 

The care team actually wasn't even going to try a bottle at first, and they were just going to start with a feeding tube. When I spoke with them earlier in the day, I voiced that I'd really like him to try the bottle first, and they agreed to let him try. I am just elated that his first sips of milk were fed to him through a bottle while being held in his dad's arms, rather than through a feeding tube. We understand that he won't always be willing or able to take a bottle (especially when he's very sleepy), and they will probably need to insert a feeding tube soon to make sure he is taking as much nutrition into his system as they want him to. But this was a great start! Mat reported he was awake and wired after his teeny first meal.

They will be feeding him 3 mL bottles/feeds every 3 hours through the night tonight. Tomorrow morning we have a meeting with the developmental/feeding specialists to go over the feeding plan. We've been warned that it's probably not going to be an easy or linear process, but we are all obviously committed to the goal of having him fully eating by mouth as soon as he can. We should get more details on the roadmap for that tomorrow morning.

He has been on and off oxygen today. He seems to do OK maintaining his oxygen levels while awake but not so great when he's asleep. They are of course continuously monitoring him and can easily start and stop the oxygen as needed. The care team did say that he may be on and off the oxygen for a long while, and they wouldn't be surprised if he struggles with maintaining his oxygen during feeding once the volumes come up. They even mentioned the possibility that we might need to continue occasional supplemental oxygen even after discharge. That's fine - it's nothing we can't handle. Although he does continually pull out his cannulas like a punk.

As for the anemia/blood count issues, his platelet counts have come up significantly, but his hematocrit is still hovering at 27 (pretty low for a baby). They will probably be giving him the Darbe shot (the one he got yesterday to encourage his body to make more red blood cells) approximately weekly for at least the rest of his stay. They will of course give him a transfusion if he drops to a critical level, but explained that they'd prefer that his body start making his own cells, since they will be more efficient.

We talked again about his length of stay, and a lot of it will depend on how the feeding progress goes. As great as we feel like he's doing now, his NP said there is still a lot left to accomplish/resolve before he will be ready to come home with us. She said she thinks his original due date (May 4th) is probably not a reasonable target at this point. Maybe we're looking at a week or two after that. But things change daily in the NICU, so we'll try not to get too hung up on dates.