... And So Long O2!!!

It's official! Noah is now breathing entirely on his own! No more nasal cannula! In fact, I took it off him myself today! It's hard to believe, but his face is even more adorable, now that he has those tubes. All he has left is the thin little n.g. tube - and hopefully he won't need that much longer either.

He is continuing to work with the feeding team so he can start feeding 100% orally. Today he took a full ounce by bottle and would have taken more if they had let him. They are still using the thickened formula with him, to help prevent any aspirating. Tomorrow he will have another swallow study to gauge how far they can let him go with the bottle feeding. We hope that he can quickly master the thickened formula so that he will be able to transition to non-thickened sooner. Unfortunately, they can't thicken breast milk because it breaks down the enzymes in the breast milk, so we are hoping he will be able to make the switch sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I am still pumping away, and he takes my breast milk through his tube feedings.

We still have our team meeting scheduled for Tuesday, although now that Noah is doing so well, it looks like the purpose of the meeting will be different - preparing for Noah's discharge! In fact, the NICU's discharge nurse called me yesterday to get our new address so that she can begin the paperwork to get Noah enrolled in an early intervention program. It feels so good to know that we are almost there!!