*there's a stumped team of doctors

December is almost over, and Will is almost 2 months old!
Earlier in December he was treated to a visit from his Nana.

Chris & his mom.

Will got lots of sweet gifts from family for Christmas as well as a visit from his Tennessee grandparents. Thanks to one of my aunts, we started the tradition of reading the Christmas story on Christmas day.
Alert: Will's first opportunity to name drop. The NICU babies got gifts from Tim McGraw & Faith Hill.

Now for his health: Will's doctors are stumped. By now his spells should be gone and they aren't. Some days they are few and mild and other days frequent and more serious. We have been waiting to see if they go away with age. It could be that they will stop as he gets closer to "term", which is about 3 weeks away. Even though he is close to that time, the doctors feel the spells should have stopped sooner. There are a few things they plan to investigate over the next week to see if they can get them under control. The first is whether or not he has reflux. His feeds have been adjusted to see if there are any changes in the spells. If reflux is the problem, then there are a number of things that can be done to help - medicines, changes in the way he is fed, etc. If there is no reflux then they plan to try an MRI of his head and a sleep study.

In the meantime, Will has already checked off one of the requirements of going home - maintaining his body temperature! Since he doesn't need to be in the temperature controlled isolette he is ready to move to a crib soon. We are increasingly invited to be more involved in caring for him. We can hold him more often but can't walk around with him since he is attached to machines. Also, he absolutely loves being swaddled so we are glad we learned to do that around his tubes and wires. His regular care (diaper, temperature, etc) is still scheduled but if we are there at the scheduled time we are welcome to do it ourselves. Will has good nurses that involve us as much as possible.

We are often asked when Will might come home - we expect it to be very near his due date, January 18th. It could be sooner, but probably not because of his breathing troubles. We are hoping that he is discharged just as we finish getting ready for him. And if not, we at least have his car seat so we can get him home! The rest can be taken care of later.

The featured pic of the day: Will's photo on the door of his room, decorated by a nurse so he looks like a little Santa!
Next on our agenda for the blog is videos! We have some but don't quite know how to share them yet.

~Jody