June 5, 2011 - 92 Days Old

This week has been a busy one. I was out of town for most of the week, so I didn't have time to post to the blog. Things have been going really well with Aiden this week. He is still making good progress. He was struggling with the lower flow rate on his cannula, so they increased it to 5 liters again and held him there all week last week. Yesterday, they turned him down to 4 liters again and so far he is doing well with that. The doctors don't plan on decreasing it any more for a while. That means that he won't be able to start trying to nurse for a while, but that's OK. The worst thing for him would be to push him too quickly and have him relapse because he isn't ready to be pushed that hard.

When I came back from Price on Friday night, I stopped by the hospital. Aiden's nurse, Becky, was holding Aiden and doing exercises with him to help him increase his neck, arm and leg strength. When I got there, she gave him to me and let me do the exercises with him. It was so fun. Now that he is a little older, he is able to interact with us a lot more. I had a great time. After the exercises, I bathed him and got him ready for bed.

Yesterday was Aiden's three-month birthday. There are three long-termers in the NICU now, and Aiden is the oldest. Every time he turns another month older, the nurses make a scrapbook page for him with his picture on it, wishing him a happy birthday. When we were over there today, they brought in his 3-month birthday scrapbook page. They moved him into a room within the NICU a couple of weeks ago, so when we are there, we can close the door and have some privacy. It is so nice and much quieter than when he was in the main area. He was in a room for about a week prior to his big setback, but while he was so sick, he had to be out in the main NICU area. We feel so blessed that he is doing so well now.

Wednesday was my birthday, but since I was in Price on Wednesday, we decided to wait until Saturday to celebrate. We visited Aiden in the morning and in the afternoon, we took the kids up to Mt. Timpanogos Park up Provo Canyon and played around. We played frisbee and catch, wrestled a little bit, and played tag. Later, we went to The Happy Sumo to eat. I had such a great time and it was an awesome birthday.