Day 50 and one step closer!

Hi everyone!  Happy Monday and I hope everyone had a great weekend! Today is Landon's 50th day in the ICN at the Pennsylvania Hospital!  It was also a memorable and happy day today as we found Landon is currently scheduled to be discharged from the hospital on Wednesday!!! 

I still cannot believe Landon could be home this week, and it still feels surreal that we are having our little guy home finally after seven plus weeks in the hospital!   He has held up his bargain so far and has fought his way doubling in size, having stable vitals, and drinking milk like a champ!  Even though Landon has been doing great after removing his oxygen, the reason we have been sticking around the past couple weeks was because he had to 'master' drinking from his bottle.  Little did we know that would become probably the hardest challenge for Landon and preemies in general.  The hospital is quite the stickler when it comes to feeding times with the babies and they have the right to be because it can become the most stressful part of having a newborn.  You want to make sure they eat so they grow and especially for preemies, they need to make sure they don't choke while breathing!  

Landon is now becoming the 'feeding pro' in the nursery and his cribmates next to him are now just realizing how difficult it is to drink from a bottle.   The hospital requires the babies to feed almost perfect for 5 days consecutively or around 35 feeds in a row.  If a baby brady's (low heartrate), or has a large 'desat' (low o2 levels), then you need to restart the 5 day countdown.  So we have had the countdown restart on us a few times, but Landon has gone Friday through Monday doing great drinking from his bottles so that is why the hospital is planning for Wednesday discharge.  He is up to almost 3 ounces a bottle every 3-4 hours now which is awesome and has been gaining weight quickly as well...he is up to 6 lbs 1oz already (~3 weeks to go to due date too)!  In preparation for coming home, we also chose to have his 2 month vaccinations at the hospital to ensure that he doesn't have any allergic reactions.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that he continues to do well tonight and tomorrow so he can come home....we're very, very close!

Below are some fun-facts from our experience:

• 5,172 miles and counting so far to and from the hospital between LeighAnn and I
• Of the total miles driven....3, 232 miles driven just on the Schuylkill Expressway alone
• Over 172 hours driving to see Landon...and worth every second!
• Over 500 hours between LeighAnn and I at the Pennsylvania Hospital (our second home)
• Over 20 different nurses and 5 doctors that have taken cared of our little guy

Now that our journey is nearing the end of the road at the NICU... we are very, very grateful that our story will have a happy ending!   We will continue to update the blog every so often with progress updates, doctor updates, and developmental milestones.   LeighAnn and I never did exactly explain why we decided to blog.  We decided to 'blog' because we knew in our heart Landon was a fighter from day one, and we wanted to share the experiences and knew our story could help others in a similar situation.  If you remember from a previous blog, 1 in 10 babies are born premature and surprisingly the number is slightly rising.   The chances are that someone reading our blog will know of a co-worker, friend, neighbor or family member that may be going through a similar experience.   We wanted to have the privilege to share our story through the blog to help ease their concerns and fears.     

I also want to take this time to thank every single person out there that has supported us through this experience.  We have been blessed to receive meals, gifts, and messages of support through the past 50 days.  It was amazing to see our friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors help us in a time of need.  Every little thing that someone did for us such as make us a meal, buy Landon a gift, message of encouragement, or just make us smile helped brighten our day just a little bit.  These unselfish acts of kindness go a long way and has opened our eyes even more from this experience.   Landon, LeighAnn and I are not completely sure how we can ever repay our appreciation but we promise to continue to go out of our way to help our friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors in a time of a need.  Everyone in their life needs that extra boost to help them get through some difficult times and all of you have done that for us...we want to say Thank You!!!

We are hoping next blog post will be a fun one with sharing our experiences with Landon at home!!

Here's a few pictures!!  Also, I am hoping to post a small video/collage of our little guy Landon next week.