4 weeks old!

Today Rowan is 4 weeks old! I cannot believe it's been 4 weeks since we said hello to our sweet boy for the first time.  It just doesn't seem possible. We love this little boy so much!

We've now also been at Children's Mercy for a week and overall it has been pretty uneventful... Thank goodness!  This morning, Rowan got a bigger ET tube placed.  They extubated and then reintubated with a larger tube to try and fix his air leak.  He wasn't having great blood gases and his oxygen needs were pretty high and they were attributing a lot of that to the air leak.  The hope is that now that the leak is gone, Rowan won't need as much oxygen and we can hopefully wean him off the vent sooner.  He's already doing much better!

Not a whole lot has changed since the last post.  He has had several good poopy diapers which is a great sign that things are moving in his belly like they are supposed to.  Yesterday his CRP was 1.9: a huge improvement from 25 which is where it was at when we got here.  The plan is to continue his antibiotics and bowel rest until the 27th.  At that point they will do an X-ray of his abdomen to check on his bowels and if everything looks good, they will slowly start feedings again and see how he tolerates it.  We've been able to hold Rowan several more times.  John got to hold him on Friday for the first time (cutest thing ever!) and I've been able to hold him a couple more times as well.  Each time they let us hold him for about 2 hours and it's the best 2 hours of the day.  I can't wait until the day when we can pick him up whenever we want to and not need help from the nurse and respiratory therapist to move him and his cords and tubes.  Something tells me I'm never going to put this sweet boy down once we get to that point.

We are so very thankful that surgery hasn't been necessary.  Surgery is always risky, but it would have been even more so because he is so tiny and he has been so prone to infection.  If all goes well with his feedings, we hope we will be able to head back to Topeka.  The nurses and doctors here have been great, but we are ready to get back closer to home and our support system.

Thank you again for all of your thoughts, prayers and donations to our Go Fund Me.  A million thank yous wouldn't be enough to express our gratitude. ❤️