Update : Morning, Saturday January 6th 2007

After our third short nap of the night, Tauni and I woke up this morning, hopeful as always, trying to keep our expectations in check. Since we are still in the hospital, we are able to see Coen every three hours and had seen him throughout the night. He was looking great and very cozy, as evidenced in the picture below. Mister Moose was standing guard yet again and overseeing little Coen's progress.

In the morning, we were excited to speak with the Neonatologist on staff and learn of Coen's daily progress report. Little did we know that this would honestly be the best morning of either of our lives.

The weekend doctor checked Coen out while we waited. After a thorough check of his charts, bloodwork, appearance, and more, the doctor gave him a glowing review. Here is the update:
1 - As mentioned before, at birth Coen had a small tear in his left lung. The fear was that the lung would release air into the chest cavity causing air pockets. Visually there have been no signs of this actually occuring. Today, morning X-Rays reported that this tear had self-healed. This is known to happen in small infants and we were thrilled to hear that his lung had been healed. At this point, there are no known respiratory issues or concerns.
2 - Coen's hematocrit (red blood cell) scores have been going down since birth. Yesterday, he was started on a medication to stimulate red blood cell growth in the bone marrow. If this did not work, he would need a blood transfusion. This is a lengthy process, but per this morning's report, his hematocrit scores have bounced back. They are still lower than desired, but they are moving in a positive direction.
3 - Coen has been urinating out roughly the same level of fluids that he has been taking in, which is awesome.
4 - Coen was finally cleared for feedings and will be able to receive Tauni's milk as it comes in. Fortunately, and as is normal, Tauni has been producing some colostrum, which we religiously take up and feed to Coen every three hours after Tauni breast pumps.
5 - Finally, Coen has had an umbilical IV coming into the vein in his umbilical cord area and running straight to his heart. This is a very invasive IV, but it allows the doctors/nurses constant IV access to his bloodstream in the case of any emergency. Because of this IV connection, Tauni has been unable to hold Coen except for a few seconds after his birth and before he was taken to the NICU. This morning the doctor ordered the removal of this IV and permitted Tauni to hold her baby for the first time. We waited patiently as he wrote the order for the IV removal and as the nurse removed the actual IV. Unfortunately, because of this, he has had an IV line placed in his scalp (outside the skull), but we were advised that this was a much safer procedure and actually very common.

As you can imagine, Tauni could not have been happier to finally hold her little man. Even with what seemed like a million wires attached to his body, Tauni was able to finally cuddle Coen and hold him against her body, skin-on-skin, to stimulate the mother/infant bonding (trust me, Tauni is already bound to this child).

Tauni was then able to attempt breastfeeding for the first time. Again, being away from her baby, her milk has not yet fully come in, but she has been producing 1-2 ML of colostrum every three hours. In an attempt to increase this amount, she has been looking at pictures and watching short videos of little Coen every time she breast pumps.

Fortunately, Coen has a very strong sucking reflex that is often very audible. Regardless, and as expected, he did not take to the breast immediately. With the assistance of a nipple shield and by putting some of the colostrum on the nipple shield (and with help from the Lactation Consultant), Tauni was able to get Coen to latch a few times. As always, he took all of the colostrum (admittedly a small amount) and was supplemented with a little formula (sprinkled on the nipple shield). Considering that he has not had access to his mom's breast now for some 60 hours since his birth, we are thrilled that Coen did as well as he did.

After feeding Coen, Tauni was then able to sit and hold him for about fifteen minutes until his scalp IV had to be put in. This was like heaven to Tauni. Dad sat back patiently and was happy enough to see the mother/infant bonding.

In summary, we did not expect that Tauni would be able to hold Coen for at least 3-5 more days. Things are progressing much sooner than ever imagined and again we give thanks to our Heavenly Father for bringing our little man along. Thank you to everyone for your prayers.