Good news!

Once again I am happy to report good news!

I was a little nervous today waiting for the results of Jacob's EKG. Just to give you all a background, they had heard his murmur again (louder than before) and were concerned that his PDA was still open or had reopened. He did have the meds to close this, but often times the PDA will open up again and they can only treat the PDA twice with meds before they go to the surgical option. Because of Jacob's size and the side effects of the meds, the second dose was not an option for him so if it was open again we would be going right to surgery and he is so small that this was making me very nervous (and cry constantly!).

The good news is that the EKG showed that his PDA is closed! It appears the meds have worked for now. We will pray that God guides Jacob through this and the PDA remains closed permanently!

Other news from the EKG, they do see a VSD, but it is very small and again they are still not concerned about it and it should close within the first year of life so moving on....

Now that they have confirmed that the PDA is closed they have increased his feedings to 3 cc's of breastmilk 7 times a day! The goal is to get him solely on breastmilk and off the IV fluids (vitamins and lipids). This will help him grow faster. As of Sunday night, he was up to 1 lb 12 oz, but last night he dropped back down to 1 lb 11 oz which is expected (the fluctuations I have discussed before).

He was also receiving another round of blood transfusions today which was to be expected with all the blood that they have been taking out of him for his labs. The nurse also told us that when babies of Jacob's size are anemic (which he is, just like his Mom and his late Grandma!) that murmurs can actually sound louder when their blood volume goes down and after the first transfusion this morning, the murmur was not as loud as it had been earlier today so that might be what they were hearing.

That is all for now! Hopefully my next update will have news of another weight gain. I think after this trial is over and Jacob comes home I may be able to write a book on Preemies! I am learning so much!