Celebrating Victories and Continuing to Pray

1:00 p.m.

David is doing really well overall. They lowered his breaths per minute again yesterday to 30 and today they're down to 28 (so he's getting 28 breaths per minute from the machine). His blood gasses looked great. His O2 is at 55%.

The only negative is that he's lost weight for the third day in a row. Today he was down to 3 lbs 4 oz. Yesterday he weighed 3 lbs 5.1 oz, and the day before he had dropped to 3 lbs 6 oz, when he had been up to 3 lbs 7 oz. As a result, they're adding the HMF (human milk fortifier) back to his breastmilk at half the rate they were (to introduce it). Please pray that his tummy lining doesn't get irritated. If it does, they'll probably supplement with high calorie formula.

10:00 p.m.

Susan and John just talked with the doctor who said, "The good news is that every morning when I listen to his lungs, they just sound so good." How encouraging!

So far, he's doing OK on the HMF. He's actually gained weight tonight. Susan doesn't know if the HMF can work that fast or not, but we're rejoicing in his weight gain!

Here's the big need for prayer tonight:
David's on antibiotics. They do a culture inside the breathing tube and test it every week. This week's came back positive for a staff infection. It's not a drug-resistant staff, and he's not showing any signs or symptoms that it's affecting him, but it is present. So they've started him on the antibiotics. Please pray that the infection will go away. A lot of times it doesn't until they get the breathing tube out. The nurse said that they may try him this coming week off the ventilator. (Wow!)

Praise Report
The doctor said they'll do another echocardiogram at some point, but they're not hearing any heart murmur or seeing any other signs that his PDA hasn't closed (the artery that needed to be closed), which is a direct answer to prayer.

Overall, we're having some victories. The main prayer needs are:

• pray against infection--especially in the breathing tube
• pray the swelling on his brain continues to go down
• pray his lungs continue to develop so that he'll be able to breathe on his own

And now for a little P.S.

Susan and John went to Babies R Us this afternoon and registered for the upcoming baby shower. We don't have any shower details yet, but we'll definitely keep you posted!