Three Pounds

Zachary has been growing consistently, and today made it to the three pounds milestone. Nadia's hindmilk (the last part of the breastmilk that comes out, which is higher in calories) is being combined with a high calorie fortifier and it seems to be doing the trick. He is finally starting to fill out and we can see a hint of the baby pudge to come. Zachy's head is definitely getting bigger, he seems to go through hats very quickly these days! In our extremely biased opinion, he is getting cuter by the day.

Is that a smile?

He is also more alert and opening his big eyes to look around with interest. He had his first eye exam last week and we were told all looks well for now, though he will continue to get exams every 2 weeks. The doctors told us he can only see light and shadow, though Zachy seems to stare right into our eyes, so we aren't sure we believe that. Apparently babies acquire adult vision around 2 years of age, which is related to the time they begin to walk. He told us that humans are unlike other animals in that way because it takes us so long to become mobile. Many animals can see well at birth because of dangers in their environment. Think of a baby zebra looking out for the lion.

Zachary & Daddy cuddle time. Do you see the resemblance? 

Zachary's biggest challenge right now is his bradycardia (rapid decrease in heart rate). Recently he suddenly started having episodes of asystole during Brady's, which is when the heart rate goes to 0. While Brady's are common in preemies, asystoles are more worrying. For the most part he comes back on his own, sometimes crying, and the nurses and doctors wonder if the monitor is picking up correctly. However the machine printouts show long pauses between heartbeats, which is alarming. To get to the bottom of this we have been working with pediatric cardiologists, and today Zachary is being fitted with a Holter monitor to wear for a few days (see description here) It isn't invasive and we hope that the monitor will tell us the pattern of these events and whether they are true asystoles or just machine error.

In other news, we have finally started working on the nursery again. We are hoping Zachary will be home before Thanksgiving, if all goes well. This past weekend Aaron worked on painting the walls and we are starting to empty the room in preparation for a crib. We even made our first baby-related purchase on Craigslist. The doctor who delivered Zachary did mention that we would end up doing all the things that expectant parents do to prepare for the new arrival, but that we would do them in a different order than most parents.