Home and Babyless, but Smiling

Today has been a great day for Landon. When I last posted I was about to go down for some Kangaroo time with him. It was amazing to have him on my chest like that- I could feel him relax as we lay there together. His arms were stretched out across me and his breathing stayed nice and slow... I'm not sure I've ever been so happy. I think it was the first time I really felt like his mother- I finally felt like I was doing something to help him intead of watching other people take care of him. He also got his first bit of formula- he still can't take a bottle because he's too busy breathing, but they used a syringe to put some in the tube going to his stomach. His little mouth opened and closed while the nurse was giving it to him- I think he knew he was getting something tastier than IV fluids. He'll continue getting three ounces every three hours through the tube until his breathing is much closer to normal.

I was discharged, so we went down to visit him at 4pm before we drove back to the apartment. We got more good news- his oxygen was at 21% (the lowest they'll put it at) and his breathing rate was in the range of normal (about 40-50 breaths a minute). The nurse thought the doctors might reduce him to a Level 6 today after all. It was a tough leaving the NICU to head home without him- I got a little choked up- but we'd had enough time to adjust to the idea and really we were just so excited over his progress that we couldn't stop smiling anyway.

We talked to his nurse at 9:30pm tonight and got even more good news- the doctors took him down to Level 6 and there's talk of taking him off the CPAP machine and just using the nasal cannula tomorrow- that's Level 4! We're still thinking it'll be next Monday when he can come home (no one's told us to adjust that expectation yet, and I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed), but he's a scrapper (as JP constantly says) and we're so excited that he's doing so well. We'll be back to visit in the morning and we get some more Kangaroo time at noon!