Finn is 50 days old today.

One thing that we have found during Finn’s NICU stay is that when you have a baby born as early as Finn was, you develop a greater appreciation for the little things that you tend to take for granted with full term newborns. We talked a couple of weeks back about how great it was to hear Finn cry (even if we should be filing that one under “Be careful what you wish for!”), and this past week, Finn took a couple of steps forward that make him seem less like a micro preemie and more like the growing, healthy 32-week gestational aged baby that he is.

On Thursday, September 8, Finn moved from his isolette (incubator) into a crib, and he started wearing clothes. He had been in the isolette from Day 1, as it gave him the help he needed in controlling his body temperature; that’s also why he’d been limited to just wearing a diaper. But, as with a lot of things, Finn growing bigger and stronger only helped matters, and the nurses decided on Thursday that the time was right to give him a shot in his big boy crib. At the same time, Mom took the opportunity to put Finn in a onesie (one that said “Tiny but Mighty” on it), and with the new onesie and swaddled in a blanket, Finn has kept a steady temperature right in the 98.6 degree range.

Finn’s battle to free himself from all breathing assistance remains an uphill one. A blood transfusion on Tuesday, September 6 (his sixth, but first in more than three weeks) didn’t have any sort of miraculous effect on the baseline pressure requirement for his CPAP, which had been bumped back up to 7 the previous day, nor his oxygen requirements, which had ticked up into the 35% to 40% range. Wary of any more regression, the NICU team suggested another round of steroids, this time a 22-day course of hydrocortisone, which is a bit less intense than the dexamethasone course he did previously. That started on Thursday, September 8, and while we were told that it might take 4 or 5 days to see the full effects, Finn is already back down to a CPAP of 6 with oxygen requirements of 23% to 25%. We’ve even discussed trying to lower his CPAP to 5 over the coming days — which is the lowest level.

Also on Thursday, September 8, Finn had his second eye exam. His right eye remained stable at Stage 1 ROP, while his left eye, which had been deemed “immature” previously, progressed to Stage 1 ROP. It’s something that will continue to be monitored, and Finn will have another exam in the coming week.

Finn is now up to 3 pounds, 10 ounces and gets 29 mL of breast milk every 3 hours.

As detailed above, Finn’s recent milestones include:

• On Thursday, September 8, Finn moved from his isolette into a crib.
• On Thursday, September 8, Finn started wearing clothes for the first time.