Three Too!

Guess who crossed the three pound mark today? That's right -- James! He weighs 1377 grams today. We are impressed that he is putting on the weight even just on his IV fluids. Hooray for James!

He's doing well today, so they may try again with food. We think it is a little early still, but the doctors will probably want to go ahead.

They did a repeat echocardiogram on him, and his PDA (heart murmur) is still moderate to large. I think that's an improvement over just "large", which is what I recall it was before, but it's not good enough -- they're still concerned that it's causing problems for him (making him work harder to breathe, possibly causing some decreased blood flow to the intestines that could contribute to the feeding intolerance). So the option of correcting it surgically is now on the table, and we will likely have some decisions to make about that in the near future.

Any surgery has risks, but according to our Preemies book (and the doctor), this procedure (PDA ligation) is generally considered to be safe with a low rate of complications. We definitely don't want to put him through it if we don't have to, but in his case, it seems to us like it might really help him. And the doctor -- who is pretty straightforward about things and does not seem the type to sugarcoat anything -- said that James is a "great candidate" for the surgery. They often do this procedure on much sicker and younger babies. At the same time, apparently there is some benefit to not waiting until he's older and bigger, because the procedure becomes more technically complex for the surgeons as the babies get bigger, and the longer the PDA goes uncorrected, the more it might cause problems for the lungs or other body systems. So, his response to the feeding attempts will provide some additional information, and we will be discussing this with the doctors over the next couple of days.