One Week Old

Cohen is one week old today! Part of me can't believe its been a week already and part of me thinks this has been the longest week ever. Its crazy to think that it has been one week since the most devastating and also exciting days of our lives. Cohen has made a lot of steps forward, but he still has so far to go. Its so hard to even explain all the different feelings and emotions that we are having. Its been a pretty exhausting week, but we feel so blessed to have all the support that we do. We just can't express how thankful we are for the love and support of friends, family, and even strangers.
Cohen has been doing well back on the conventional ventilator, his settings are still being tweaked so that they can find his happy place but overall he hasn't had to many problems with it. A few days ago one of the nurses heard a heart murmur and so they are concerned that he has a PDA. When babies are inside the blood doesn't go to the lungs and there is a blood vessel that allows the blood to bypass the lungs. Normally, this closes after birth, but it isn't uncommon in preemies for it to not close. They are concerned about this because it may be causing irregular shunting of his blood. Sometimes it can close on its own, but if they feel it is causing problems then they may give him medication to close it. He is scheduled to have another echocardiogram tomorrow sometime. The Dr does not think this has anything to do with all his previous concerns about having heart problems once he was born. The echo would show if anything else was going on, but the Dr doesn't expect to find anything other than the PDA.
Cohen is also enjoying his food! They started to feed him and he is doing well with that, he is getting 1.5 mLs an hour. Woohoo, such a big boy. Today I got to change his diaper, he is so tiny! He is off all of his
medicines to help him pee and yesterday he actually started to pee too much so they were keeping a close eye on his electrolytes. The Dr had told us that this may happen, but it seems to have slowed down today. He did get rid of a fair amount of his fluid and he looks really good today! We have decided that he has the Rinehart "Nike" eyebrows and lots of dark hair. He definitely has his Daddy's fingers and toes and he loves to stretch out and wave his arms around. He also likes to sleep with his hands on his face and it's really cute.
Danny is going back to work this week so please pray for energy and strength for him as he is at home without his family. We are really going to miss him here. My mom is here staying with me and I got some home cooked food! We have moved out of the hospital room and into a sort of hotel. It's one of the old UW dorms set up like hotel rooms and with a community kitchen. It is specifically for people who are patients or need to be close to the hospital for short or long term.
I had read this verse when I was pregnant and wanted to put it in the babies room, but never quite got around to it.
"I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord" 1 Samuel 1:27 & 28
And a few pictures...



Danny's "bed" at the hospital...a little short