It has been hard to contain the excitement of the last 30 hours or so.  Just minutes after posting my last update, things started moving very quickly.  At surgical rounds yesterday, we were hoping to hear that Henry was doing well off suction and talk about techniques on how to get him to poop.  Instead, they decided that he was doing well enough to start feedings. HOLY CRAP!

Sofia walked away from rounds before they were done, crying.  It was one of the most exciting moments we’ve had in the NICU–second only to the surgeon telling me they didn’t find any holes in his intestines at two hours old.  In the minutes that followed, as the colostrum was defrosting, his first bowel movement revealed itself (holy crap). It was overwhelming to surge past two of the most important milestones within minutes.

Watching Sofia hold the bottle of 5 ML of colostrum to Henry’s hungry mouth was probably one of the most exciting moments of my life.  We are well aware that the road to full feedings will likely be slow and full of ups and downs. But nothing will take away the excitement of moving so quickly over these last two days.

We went to sleep last night full of relief.  When we came in this morning, we were told that he had already been bumped up to 10/ML every 3 hours since he had been taking it so well.  And…they approved us to start working on dry breastfeeding before bottle time so that he can get used to it. We’ve already done that twice and he is making incredible progress.

I am about to go wait in line for a long time to get a birth certificate, but I just wanted to  share the great news.