DAY 6—WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2008

ANDREW - Today Andrew is still trying to heal from his surgery just a few days ago. Some of his swelling has gone down and his skin color is still very pink and healthy looking. He underwent another ultrasound this morning to learn more about his kidneys. Last night they started to feed him formula and mothers milk through his feeding tube at a slow drip of 3 cc an hour. However he apparently didn't tolerate it very well and his stomach began to swell, so they cut back his feeding to 2 cc and seems to be doing better. Doctor's also ordered an enema to help his bowels open up, but when they went to give it to him he had already pooped...a lot, so they didn't need to give him the enema. We never thought we could be so excited about a poopy diaper as we were then. He also received another blood transfusion to help boost his red blood cell count. This will help him carry more oxygen and help his healing. Dr. Close also ordered that his foley catheter be removed because it began to leak again. But he is still peeing very well which lets us know his kidneys are still producing lots of urine. They will track his urine output by weighing his diaper every few hours. This evening Dr. Close called and let us know that most of the tissue in Andrew's kidneys look very healthy and that his Creatine levels have dropped down from 0.6 to 0.5, which means his kidneys are functioning very well to filter his blood of toxins. Dr. Close also mentioned that he will eventually need surgery but it is not urgent at this point. She has scheduled another ultrasound on Friday to continue monitoring his progress. (PICTURE: Katie visiting Andrew)

AARON - Today Aaron is doing much better than yesterday. The nurses took out the IV in his hand because it started to swell with fluid. So they decided to see how well he will do without the IV and monitor hydration through his diaper. His feeding schedule changed to 8:30, 11:30, 2:30, 5:30 and so forth because the Special Care Unit he is in had an influx of a couple new babies, which had to be on his schedule. The nurses have to stagger their feeding in order to keep up. His feeding amount also increased from 30 cc to 35 cc. At his 5:30 pm feeding he was able to stay awake long enough to drink down the whole thing. We were so happy for him. He also stayed awake after the feeding long spent a good 5-10 minutes with him. He is still peeing a lot, but his pooping has decreased a bit. He should be pooping a bit more, but that can change tomorrow. At his 8:30 pm feeding, Aaron did even better in drinking all of his milk. He took only 10 minutes to finish his bottle. We are so happy he is doing so much better than yesterday. (PICTURE: Aaron sleeping so peacefully with  full tummy)