Getting bigger and better...

Wow, has it really been a month since he has been home? I truly can't believe it! It feels like we just left the hospital yesterday...

Matthew is currently 20-1/2 inches long and is weighing 8 pounds 10 ounces as of last Thursday. Only six more ounces to go and he will finally be 9 pounds!! (this is what my doctor was estimating his actual birthweight was going to be when I was pregnant with him...weird, huh?) He's even starting to outgrow some of his 0-3 month clothing (I never thought I'd say that). For those of you with inquiring minds, it looks like the color of his eyes is going to be hazel (just like his daddy) and he even has a dimple in his chin, just like his daddy does. He has dark hair that is finally starting to come in, so maybe he won't be bald afterall!

Matthew is also getting much stronger too. He is able to hold his head up for long periods of time without any assistance. He likes to push with his legs and pull up with his arms when I am holding him, so basically he will crawl up my chest up to my shoulders. He even gets really frustrated when he can't go any farther than that. Matthew is now beginning to smile a lot more too. He has these really cute, huge toothless smiles that just make me laugh hysterically every time I see them. I found out that he is also really ticklish on his feet, toes, shoulders and neck. It's so much fun watching him change every day...

Anyway, about a week ago, I just felt like Matthew was ready to be moved off the feeding tube and the special feeding bottle that he was on. There were so many clues he was giving me that I felt like it was time to make a change, so we did!! Thank God too because I was really getting sick of dealing with the feeding tube and all the other things that had to go along with it. Currently, Matthew is feeding from a regular bottle and is doing great. In the last day or so the doctor even told us we don't have to be so rigid on feeding him every three hours. Although, we are not suppose to go longer than four hours between feeds. In addition, we are able to let him take as much or as little as he feels up to taking. So if he wants 2 ounces at one feed and 3 at the next, that is okay too. If he wants to eat in 2-1/2 hours instead of 3 then we can feed him then or even if he goes 3-1/2 hours before he is ready to eat we can do that too. The only problem that we struggle with is the fact that he still needs medications at every feeding, so we may try and juggle some things around. The good news though is that we were able to stop one of his medications for his direct bilirubin levels. The last set of tests that were done at Thanksgiving time showed that his direct bilirubin is down to 1.2!!! THE LOWEST THAT IT HAS EVER BEEN!!! (The highest it had been at was 14) It still needs to be below one, so we are continuing with his other medication to bring down his bilirubin. He has more labwork to be drawn on Monday, so I am hoping that we will be able to stop more of his other meds.

I met with the occupational therapist last week and she said Matthew was doing absolutely fabulous. She went on to say that she is giving him an A+ for feeding and that we don't need to see her again unless some other problems come up for him, which very well could happen after his eye surgery. With his eye surgery she said it could be like starting all over again...UGH! I hope not! Anyway, she also did say that she was really impressed with him because a lot of the issues that most preemies born at 24 weeks have, he doesn't seem to have, at least with regards to feeding!!! PRAISE GOD!!! I am so excited that something seems to be going right. The other thing that I have been really excited about is that I have been breastfeeding him occasionally, especially when his food isn't quite ready... Amazingly, he latches on with no problems!! From what I understand, this is also pretty rare! I am hoping that one day I will be able to breastfeed half if not all his feedings in the future!

As far as we can tell, his eyes are about the same so the surgery still needs to be done but we don't know if it is going to happen on the 29th or not. Matthew has 5 doctor's appointments this week and one of them is the eye doctor, so I will check with him to see when that may happen.

He is still on the oxygen, although his pediatrician would like to start weening him off of it, so we are very slowly coming down on the liter flow rate. We went a bit too fast this last week and realized he was not oxygenating his blood sufficiently so we had to bump him back up. I suspect it will be like the ventilator before where he did good for awhile then he went back on then off, then on, but one never knows, he may end up doing great in the weening process. We shall see.

I've been trying to get Jason to post more pictures of Matthew (he has a special way of doing it, otherwise I would do it), but he has been absolutely swamped with stuff...so as soon as we can, we will get you a new photo of him.

Please keep praying for Matthew's healing and growth process! We know your prayers have been heard. Thank you all again so very much! We'll continue to keep you posted on the latest updates about our little man.