more good news

It's been a couple days since our last post! Sorry, we haven't forgotten about all of you who faithfully read our Dane updates. :) Dane is continuing to take his milk better each day. On Thursday he drank 2.5 bottles, Friday managed 3 (albeit very tired at the end), which is moving in the right direction. Today he only got 2.5 bottles again (but hopefully he'll get another one in before the end of the day). It is still discouraging for us to have him not do as well with breastfeeding, even though we know that he'll keep improving at that. The nurses keep telling us that he's doing really well, but Larissa feels like he's not doing well because of something she's doing, which is hard. I (and the nurses) keep assuring her that he just needs time, so we'll just keep working on it.

We also talked with the nurse practitioner for the NICU, who said that we'll begin doing discharge planning next week. We aren't sure what exactly this entails, but we know we'll be picking a pediatrician for him. That is exciting because it (hopefully) means he'll be coming home within the next 1-2 weeks. We can't wait! We know he is in really good hands at the NICU, but we miss him when we are home. After having him with us constantly for the last 7 months, it's weird not to have him kicking Larissa in the ribs at night and squirming around for me to feel.

Babette (from Tyndale) also came to the NICU on Thursday to meet Dane. It was great to see her and she brought us an excellent non-frozen dinner, which was awesome since we're slowly cramming the freezer w/ milk. She assures us that she will be able to hold him without crying at some point in the future:)

Also, for those of you who were wondering, Dane still has red hair. :) Now that his hair is getting a bit longer, it is looking even more red (the photos don't really do it justice!) All the nurses are in love with him, which doesn't surprise us a bit. (But we still like to know other people think he's cute, too... I keep thinking of the Seinfeld episode "The Hamptons" where everyone but the parents of a baby see how ugly the kid is... we are glad that that isn't the case with Dane!) Anyway, Dane has also managed to get into the habit of making Larissa change all his poopiest diapers (as she gets the first one in the morning while I'm at class), and peeing on her each time she changes a diaper. She's getting better at noticing this before he pees on the crib, her clothes, his clothes/blankes, or his own face.

Our last bit of news is about Larissa's doctors appointment yesterday (Friday). She met with the doctor about her blood pressure. As you may remember reading, Larissa was initially put on 2 blood pressure medications (Labetelol and Nifedipine). Last week Larissa's BP began to normalize (down from the highs of ~160/110 to more normal, like 110/70) and she hadn't needed any medications since last Friday. Now, after 1 week off of medicines, the doctor said she is doing great and we don't need to follow her BP anymore. She can also start exercising (which I know she's excited about) but only non-impact stuff for now. She's allowed to walk/swim/do the elliptical, but they said she should wait until 6 weeks after delivery (3 weeks from now) to start doing impact exercises because the ligaments around her uterus haven't tightened back to normal yet. She is antsy to start doing TurboKick again, but she'll wait a couple more weeks to be safe.

And lastly, for those of you following all of this in your prayers, we would appreciate prayer for the following things:
- improved sleep for us (especially for Larissa, since she is getting up every ~4 hours to pump)
- Dane continuing to improve with taking his bottle-/breast-feedings
- deciding what to do for Larissa for work next year (we are torn because she would love to stay home with Dane, especially since he's so little, but we can't afford to have her quit - ideally we'd have her be able to work part time at Tyndale or work from home a couple days/week)
- getting finalized about where to live next year (nothing we have found has everything we want at a price we can afford - things like laundry would be great with the little guy) and getting moved.

Thanks! We can't wait for Dane to meet you all.