Finn is now two weeks old, has both eyes wide open (at least, when he isn’t spending most of the day sleeping), and is eating more and more each day.

The best news Finn received over the past few days was the result of his cranial ultrasound on Friday, August 5. Preemies are at an increased risk for bleeding in their brains, and substantial hemorrhaging can potentially have some pretty severe impacts on a baby’s later development. Finn had an initial ultrasound back on July 26 that showed just a small amount of bleeding in his left ventricle, a result that the neonatologist said he “would take every time” for a 25-weeker. That remained unchanged in a follow up ultrasound on July 28, and then this more recent follow up confirmed that same trajectory. In terms of big potential problems for micro preemies that Finn has been fortunate to avoid, his relatively clean cranial ultrasound results rank near the top of the list.

While Finn hasn’t had any additional follow up echoes on his heart since the one earlier this week, the nurses, nurse practitioners and neonatologist have been listening for a heart murmur through a stethoscope, and believe the PDA is continuing to close.

His breathing remains about the same, with no changes to his respiratory settings over the past few days — aside from when, at 3:00 am this morning, Finn decided to pull out his breathing tube!  Just yesterday, the nurse had seen Finn with his hand wrapped around his tube and said that he’d eventually be strong enough to pull it out, but not for a little while… though it seems like we once again underestimated Finn’s feistiness.

As of last night, Finn was weighing in at a bit under 1 pound, 13 ounces, and he’s been tolerating his feedings well as they’ve bumped him up slowly from just 1 mL every 3 hours on Wednesday morning to 5.4 mL every 3 hours this afternoon. The more he can eat, the faster he’ll grow — which, the doctor said, can only help his development, particularly that of his lungs.

Finn’s milestones over the past few days include:

• On Friday, August 5, Finn opened his right eye.