Hi Everyone!

Wow! What a couple of weeks!

Kai has been making some serious  moves recently. Just to list them off he's:

1. Joined the 5 lb club (5 lbs 8 oz as of today January 26th)

2. Moved out of his incubator into a crib!

3. Has had his feedings condensed down to 45ml of milk over 30 minute intervals

4. Got rid of his oxygen support!!

He's been doing so exceptionally well over the past few weeks. We still have a number of weeks ahead of us with some more major milestones that we'll need to hit, but we're feeling pretty positive after a stretch of wins. The weight gain and condensed feedings are a fantastic step after the extremely slow process to get any meaningful calories into him. For the first few weeks Kai had a really hard time keeping anything down and wasn't digesting very efficiently. It's amazing to see we've gone from 1 ml of milk an hour to the equivalent of 90ml an hour! He's eating so well and putting on the lb's nearly as fast as his dad. The move from the incubator to the crib has given us a real level of comfort and normalcy. As far as we're concerned the less equipment, wires, dings, rings and beeps.. the better. The biggest surprise came just this morning when we walked into his room and he's oxygen support free! The Nurse Practitioner came in to discuss the plan with us, and explained that they felt Kai was ready to start trying to breathe all on his own. Over the course of the next 24 hours they'll monitor his oxygen levels and breathing rate closely to make sure that he's ready to do it all on his own- but so far so good!

With all these big milestones being hit it's hard to know he'll still be in the NICU for another month. We're trusting in God's plan and the knowledge and processes of the medical staff to do what's best for Kai. The next hurdle to get over is oral feeds, which will allow the feeding tube to be removed. After that we'll be down to just the bare minimum wires monitoring his levels. We have some time ahead of us but things are looking up, we cannot wait to get home and really start our new family!!