Let's hear it for the boys

Remember that song from the '80s? I love it. Anyway.....

All three boys are over FOUR POUNDS! William finally made it over the hump with a whopping weight gain last night! 

Current weights:

Stokes - 4 lb, 5.8 oz

Ryan - 4 lb, 7.6 oz

William - 4 lb, 2.4 oz

Guess what...William is on low flow oxygen! He got upgraded from high flow to low flow earlier today. We are so proud of the progress he has made!

Ryan is still on low flow as well but I don't think he will be on it much longer. He is doing great and will probably return to room air soon.

Stokes is keeping himself on room air and doing great. His nurse, Kathleen, and I introduced him to a bottle tonight. Bottle feeding is another task that the boys will have to master before coming home. From what I understand it's quite an arduous task for NICU babies. You wouldn't think it would be very hard for them to drink from a bottle but combining sucking, swallowing and breathing is very difficult for a preemie. The goal is for them to take the bottle without dropping their heart rate AND continuing to breathe. So you may be wondering how Stokes did tonight. The answer is that he did awesome! He took 10 cc's from the bottle and took breaks to gulp and breathe. We were just trying it out tonight and gave him 10 cc's out of the 40 he takes with each feeding. Since this was a trial and we didn't want to wear him out, he got the remaining 30 cc's through his feeding tube. This was my first experience with bottle feeding and I didn't know what to expect, but Kathleen assured me that he did really well! Go Stokes! I am going to try a bottle with Ryan tomorrow. 

Pics of our first bottle feeding:

I will do another post later that talks about the long process and the progressions of feeding and why this part is so challenging for the babies and the families. 

I haven't asked for specific prayers lately, but want to ask that you thank God for all the progress the boys have made thus far and ask him to continue pouring His blessings on the Peery triplets. We still have a long road ahead of us and need God's help to stay on the right track. Thanks, y'all!