Finn was one month old yesterday, August 23.

He’s certainly come a long way in the past 32 days, and on Monday, August 22, he took one of his biggest steps forward yet: he graduated from his ventilator!

Finn is now on a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine, which provides a baseline of pressure to his lungs and can provide him with extra oxygen as needed. The big difference between this and the ventilator is that Finn isn’t getting any breaths automatically; he’s getting help, sure, but all of his breaths are his own, initiated by him. This is a pretty big deal, needless to say, and we think it’s all the more impressive because when the NICU team here agreed that it was time to give him a “trial” off of the ventilator, it came replete with warnings that he may not be quite ready. So in this sink-or-swim proposition, Finn is happily doggie paddling along, now a full two days later.

He did get a helping hand last night (Tuesday, August 23) in the form of the beginning of a course of a steroid, dexamethasone. While he had taken to the CPAP, Finn was on some of the highest settings that the NICU team would be comfortable with (including oxygen settings between 40% and 45%), and any regression from there would likely have resulted in a swift return to the ventilator. We were initially pretty nervous at the thought of giving steroids to a two pound baby, but a number of discussions with the neonatologist, various nurses and respiratory therapists brought us around to the idea that though there were potential drawbacks, the risks of not giving him the medicine likely outweighed the risks of giving it to him. He got his first dose last night, and by early this morning, Finn was down to 25% oxygen (just a touch above the room air that all of us are breathing).

Tomorrow would have marked Finn’s 30 week gestational age, and so while he has a long way to go, we are so very proud of how far he has come.

Finn’s recent milestones include:

• As discussed above, on Monday, August 22, Finn graduated from his ventilator.