Week 2

14 Days at Dartmouth! 

Sometimes time here moves so fast...other times we feel like time has stopped, but today we are celebrating the 2 week mark! 

Elliot has had a very steady week and we are thankful for that.  He recieved a bigger breating tube, his smaller one had a leak due to mechanical error.  We are happy for the larger one since it's brought his levels down and he is much happier - a good move all around for everyone.  It took the folks here a few tries to get it in and finally success!  Though we have learned that if a child has a hard time with this change they often put a "difficult airway" sign on the oxygen mechine.  So now Elliot is the proud owner of one of these very large, very red "difficult airway" signs - BJ and I got a good laugh at the size of the sign on Thursday, it's easily bigger than Elliot! 

They were happy with his skin color this week so they have taken him off the tanning lights - he's got more color than his mom and dad, but that's not hard to accomplish...BJ wondered if they could shine the light down on me and if my skin would tan....needless to say we don't get much color sitting in a hospital all day! 

We spent 90 minutes taking a water color class on Thursday afternoon.  Once a month a woman comes in and does different art projects with parents of children in the ICN.  We were a little hesitant at first but once we got the directions we were off!  We each made a little sign to post next to Elliot's incubator - it was acutally very relaxing, but I don't think we will change our professions quite yet!

Elliot continues to put on some weight, he is not getting any milk yet so he's only getting his nutrients from a gatorade drink, it seems to be working for him now.  Hopefully he will be able to get some milk in the next 10 days.

Earlier this week we posted photos of us holding Elliot - that was a HUGE milestone for the two of us.  It was so nice to get him out of the incubator and hold him, despite the challenge with all the wires and oxygen mechines once he got settled it was wonderful!  We were also excited for our first family photo!

Again, we can not thank all of you for the well wishes, prayers, cards, emails, packages and phone calls - it really is heart warming to think of all the people who have reached out to us!  We are so lucky to have all of you in our lives and we can't wait to introduce all of you to Elliot!