Finn is 88 days old today.

The name of the game these days is “feeding and growing.” He’s doing the latter part quite well, crossing the 6-pound mark a week ago on Wednesday, October 12 — which means he’s quadrupled his birth weight.  The former is happening in fits and starts, however, as Finn continues to try to build stamina to eventually take over all of his feeding on his own.

Finn has “care times” every three hours, where Mom and Dad or the nurses (if we aren’t here) change his diaper, take his temperature, and get him breast milk. Every other care time, or once every six hours, we’ll try to either bottle-feed or breastfeed him.  Finn has thus far taken four full bottles — full being a moving target as his weight goes up, so 49 mL as of today — and the rest of the time, he tends to take down half to two-thirds of the bottle.  Breastfeeding has been sort of hit or miss; it often takes him a little while to get going, but when he has the stamina, he’ll breastfeed for between 5 and 15 minutes. What Finn doesn’t take by mouth gets delivered straight to his stomach via his feeding tube.

For Finn to graduate from the NICU, he’ll need to be able to eat by mouth entirely on his own — full feedings, and at every care time (not just every other).  It means that our little guy has some hard work ahead of him, and we’re hoping for a mid-November graduation at this stage.

While he may be here for another month or so, that didn’t stop one of Finn’s NICU nurses from giving Mom and Dad the discharge planning packet back on October 12… because everything else is going pretty well!  Most babies typically get their discharge planning packets at 34 weeks, and while Finn was almost 37 weeks when he got his, we’re still incredibly proud of him given all that he’s overcome.  He’s continued with his weekly eye exams (where no news is good news), is weaning off of his prednisolone and onto a twice-a-day inhaler that he can take home with him, and is still on just a bit of extra oxygen. They’re also continuing to monitor his hematocrit (it will get checked again next week) and we are hoping he can avoid a seventh blood transfusion.

And of course, Finn is continuing to plump up.  He was measured at 17.5 inches long on Sunday, October 16, and weighed in at 6 pounds, 9 ounces last night, Tuesday, October 18. Looking at him now, it’s incredible to think how tiny and skinny he was 12 weeks ago.

Finn’s recent milestones include:

• On Wednesday, October 12, Finn weighed in at 6 pounds, 1 ounce — more than quadruple his birth weight.
• On Wednesday, October 12, Finn’s Mom and Dad received his discharge planning packet.