Finn is 78 days old today.

On Tuesday, October 4, Finn moved rooms for the first time since he was less than a day old. The NICU babies that need respiratory support are all clustered in rooms in the back of the unit, so Finn had been in that neck of the woods for the first 10+ weeks of his life. But having been off of CPAP for over two weeks, and having completed his second course of steroids without experiencing a significant rebound, Finn was sent packing down the hallway. He’s now moved on up (to the east side of the building… seriously!) and is, quite literally, closer to the door.

As Finn chugs right along toward full term gestational age (he’s now 36 weeks, 3 days), we’ve started moving down the checklist of things he’ll need to do before he’s allowed to bust out of this joint. Between Tuesday, October 4 and Wednesday, October 5, he got his vaccinations, took his hearing test (he passed!), and had his sixth weekly eye exam (which showed about the same results as the week before). While his hematocrit levels are still a bit on the low side, there are no imminent plans for a blood transfusion, as it seems likely Finn’s bone marrow just needs a bit of time to make more red blood cells — and they’re trying to help that process along by maxing out his iron supplement.

On Thursday, October 6, Finn had a follow up echo on his heart. The headline coming out of it is that Finn showed no signs of hypertension, which is always a concern for micro preemies given that they are born with chronic lung disease. The echo also showed that Finn’s PDA — for those of you keeping score at home, that’s the open duct in his heart that we haven’t talked about since mid-August — is still there but is very tiny, and is still expected to close on its own.

Finn checked in last night just shy of 5 pounds, 9 ounces; his weight has been up and down the last few days, as the doctors, nurses and nutritionists here in the NICU try to determine the right balance of volume and added calories to keep Finn within the bounds of the preferred growth curve for micro preemies.

The main task before Finn now is a simple, if still difficult, one: keep progressing with his feeds to the point where he no longer needs his feeding tube. It’s been slow going given the limited stamina that Finn has. For instance, on Thursday, October 6, Finn took a full 42 mL bottle, but the next day, he struggled to take down half that amount before losing his lunch all over Dad. He’s been equally up and down with breastfeeding, tending to be more awake and willing to nurse at night, but wanting to sleep instead of working to eat during the day.  This has led to Mom frequently coming back in at night to breastfeed Finn (showing some pretty incredible stamina of her own, given everything that’s going on).

Finn’s recent milestones include:

• On Tuesday, October 4, Finn moved down the hall (and closer to the door!).
• On Thursday, October 6, Finn finished his first full bottle.
• On Saturday, October 8, under the watchtful eye of his older brother Dermot, Finn had his first bath (and he loved it!).