Here’s some current pictures of life in the NICU for Elias. Here’s his cute little sign that the nurses made for him.

This is from Sunday, when the kids got to come into the NICU one at a time and meet their brother. Here’s Knut and his boys.

Here’s a picture of Elias’ warming bed, where he spends his days. He’s surrounded by a bunch a machines, which I’m sure he would enjoy having cool machines in his room more when he’s older!

Here’s Elias holding his big sister’s hand, much to her delight.

This is Elias today, just chillin’ before they took off his nose tubes. That’s right! He is no longer on any oxygen, or pressurized air, as they say his lungs are now satisfactory! All that is left for him to go home is a few last things. He needs to gain weight, maintain his temperature, and be able to eat without the feeding tube. Weight gain will come with the nursing. He nursed all day today, and did surprisingly well. He doesn’t nurse at night, since I’m not there. The lactation consultants would like to wait until he nurses well all day before they take the feeding tube out of his nose, and bottle feed him at night.
Tonight while we’re gone, they’ll probably take the cathater out of his belly button since he’s no longer on antibiotics or lipids, and after that is out, he’ll be able to be moved to a crib in the NICU. (But tomorrow, he might first be under the lights first for jaundice.) They haven’t tested if he can maintain his own temperature yet, since he needed to be observed naked for his lungs, so he’s been living under the heat lamp. Now that the lungs are under control, they’ll be able to test his ability to control his temp, which we have no reason to think he’ll have trouble with.

This is a picture of Elias taken today. He still has the feeding tube in as you can see, but that will probably be removed tomorrow, as long as he nurses as well as he did today.

Here’s Knut holding Elias tonight. He’s been farming during the day, and driving up to Fargo to be with us at night. He’s always eager to hold Elias as soon as he walks in the door!

Hope you enjoyed the new update!