Home at Last!

Sorry for not updating sooner, but it's for a good reason! Elliot came home last Wednesday after a 15 day stay in the NICU. Things were very busy while we finished getting the house ready for him to get home. The doctors were so pleased with his progress in the NICU. When we started to talk about discharge, they let me breastfeed as much as he wanted during the day. Then, they stopped fortifying the breastmilk that he was getting in the bottle. This is good because they wanted to see if he could gain weight on straight breastmilk. They knew that I wasn't planning on giving him formula and that I wanted to nurse him. For two days he took enough breastmilk to have adequate dirty and wet diapers as well as gain weight. Then they took his tube out and got his discharge stuff ready. First they gave him his hepatitis B vaccine and a Synagis shot (for RSV). He was able to qualify for Synagis because of the time of year as well as his gestational age at birth.

They also did a hearing test. This is done for premature babies or other babies that meet certain risk factors. He passed on one ear but didn't pass on the other. He's getting retested on Thursday. The docs told me that it can be anything such as fluid in his ear, so I'm not worried about anything yet. And lastly, he had his circumcision and passed his carseat test. On discharge day, he weighed 4 lbs 13 oz. Here are some pics from discharge day.

At his checkup yesterday, he already weighed 5 lbs 4 oz! Dr. Defusco (his pediatrician) was impressed! He has been nursing like a champ around the clock. He loves to sleep during the day and wakes about every 1 1/2 hours to nurse during the night. He's a very very good baby :). Here are some of my favorite pics of him since he's been home. I have a lot of cute ones with his big brother, but I'll save that for another post.