29 Weeks (2 week Birthday!)

Today was a very eventful day for our little guy! First, it's his 2 week birthday! This marks his 29th gestational week of age. Here is an updated photo of our little guy with the giraffe. Luckily the top to his isolette was open because he just got done with his sponge bath (read below), so I got a clear shot of him. 

To help you scale exactly how large the giraffe is, here's a photo of it with my iPhone. The green ruler next to the iPhone is six inches long.

Speaking of his isolette - our little guy graduated and his isolette is no longer humidified! Also, the temperature is kept at a steady temp, instead of reading off his body temp and adjusting. This is a huge step towards being in an open air crib - which we can't wait to achieve! It's also really nice because the probe that attached via a sticker on his belly always fell off, so it kept beeping non-stop saying "cold baby" - our baby isn't cold! :) So now we don't have to hear that anymore (and again, he has one less wire attached to him!) Hopefully another week or two and we'll be reporting he graduated up to the open air crib and is a big boy!

Today Owen also had his first sponge bath!!!! He had two ultrasounds today - one for his head to check on the brain bleed that we previously reported on (results are back - no change, which means it looks like we're in the clear and there is no long term damage - yea!) and one of his kidneys. The kidney ultrasound is normal for preemies born with two vessel cords, to make sure there is no long term damage. The results won't be in until tomorrow, but they don't anticipate seeing anything of concern, it's more standard operating procedure (plus, I'm sure another thing to bill our insurance!)

This resulted in a very sticky, yucky head (plus, he didn't smell like himself anymore...so sad)! So our wonderful nurse helped out by giving him a head sponge bath. She is going to do a full body sponge bath tomorrow - yea! Here is a photo of the moment. He LOVED it - he is a water guy just like his daddy!

Today we also did hand and foot impressions of our little guy. Owen's Aunt Lisa and Uncle Ryan bought us a neat frame for Christmas that has a spot for each so we brought in the plaster today and captured his little hands and feet while they are still super small. Here is a photo of the impressions, with my hand in the middle to help scale their size. Cute, huh? We're trying to wrap up the nursery a little bit at a time so by the time they say he's ready to go, we will be ready too! We have already finished washing all of his clothes and assembling all of the furniture - only the wall decorations are left! I will post pictures of the nursery once we're all done.

Finally, remember the super nice nurse Kim I mentioned in my birth story? Oh yeah, I haven't published it yet (hint hint, Rory - finish your part!!!!) but a nurse named Kim was with me the entire time, holding my hand (after Rory left to be with Owen) and reassuring me everything was going well. She was WONDERFUL. She stopped by today to say hi and check on our little guy. Turns out a few days after our cesarean section, her daughter (who was also pregnant - though 34 weeks along) went into labor and had a son, named Owen too! She was in the NICU (same one as us) for three days before they were sent home. We're trying not to be jealous - we'll be going home with our Owen soon too!

PS - per Mama Dawn's (my mom) request, here is a photo of his preemie paci. It's the clear one on the left - the green one on the right is still a small pacifier, but they consider it to be more 'full term' than the one Owen's using. However, we started trying to give him the larger one today so he can practice.

Owen is two weeks old today (29 gestational weeks)!