Happy adjusted birthday Mason!

Mason was transferred back to Northside on Saturday. We are so glad to be back where we can focus on his eating, but we don't expect to stay long this time! We were gradually increasing his bottles and, as of today, he is on all bottle feedings! I am so excited to see him without his feeding tube! It's possible that we may have to slow down if it's too much for him, but he is doing great. He's very happy to be fed again and he seems like a totally different baby now. His reflux is much better and we suspect that the pyloric stenosis was aggravating it all along. Now that it has been fixed, he is progressing quickly and we hope to have him home very soon! We will be spending a lot of time at the hospital this week working with him on his feedings since that is the last step to getting him home.

Mason is now 8 weeks old and today is his adjusted birthday (my original due date). If you're not familiar with preemies, they are typically tracked by both their actual age (age from their actual birthday) and adjusted age (age from their due date). Preemies are usually monitored developmentally using their adjusted age until they 'catch up' (typically at a year or so). Mason has already been seen by the physical therapists at Northside and he is right on track developmentally, so we think he will catch up very quickly.

This is how we found Mason sleeping when we went to feed him on Sunday night. We left him tightly swaddled in his blanket and he somehow wriggled free and shifted down in his bed under the blanket. This would probably be a SIDS risk if he were at home, but it is OK since he is on the monitor at the hospital :-)

Ready for my bottle! See - no feeding tube!

Still hungry after his bottle - can I have more?