Hold Me... Now!

January 15, 2011 - Grady Jeremiah is doing well! Thank you for continuing to pray for him. We daily see God's provision, and continue to find such encouragement in how many of you are involved in this journey with us through your prayers and encouragement. Here are several encouraging updates...GROWTH - He continues to grow well, even without the milk fortifiers that were previously used to add calories to his milk. He is only eating breast milk now, with a multivitamin supplement once a day. His weight is now 5 pounds, 7 ounces! That is a two ounce increase just in the past day. We love his chubby cheeks! Notice how much he has filled out in the picture to the right. Please pray that he will continue to grow well without any setbacks.FEEDINGS - We are seeing steady improvement in his ability to breast and bottle feed over the past several days. He takes between 10 to 35 cc on his own, without us having to "encourage" it. Yesterday morning we heard him screaming as we walked near his room. His feeding via his tube before we arrived had not gone in and he was trying to let us know. We think he was trying to scream loud enough to wake us up a block away at Ronald McDonald House! This morning, I (Grady) was holding him. He woke up about 45 minutes before his scheduled time to be fed and began to try to "root" on me. He hasn't learned that it won't work on his daddy :-) At times like those we are able to give him around 30 cc via bottle and he does great! It is encouraging to see him digesting so well and wanting to eat. It is so much fun to watch him want to eat, and to watch him learn how to do so. Please pray that he will begin to be able to take his full feeds via breast and/or bottle very soon! We would love to see him take a whole feed (48 cc) via bottle tomorrow. WANTING TO BE HELD - Grady Jeremiah really longs to be touched and held. More and more he cries so that we will hold him. It is not a cry that bothers us at all :) We are so blessed to be in a facility where Grady Jeremiah has his own room. There are no visitation hour limitations for us and we can be with him at anytime, day or night. Often when he starts to cry we will do all the normal things... make sure he is not hungry, make sure he is comfortable (and not laying on his pacifier or something like that!), make sure he has a clean diaper. If all of those things are okay, then we pick him up to hold him. He usually looks up at us (and our hearts melt) and immediately settles down. A few days ago he was getting really fussy. Somehow I ended up holding him for a while in the isolette as you see in the picture to the right... It was all he needed to settle back down. However, anytime I tried to move my hands away, he began to get fussy again! We are just so glad that he enjoys our touch and finds security in it. Pray that he will continue to bond well with us and feel the love and security he needs.Thank you again for your prayers and encouragement. Anytime we sit down to write this blog, we are reminded of God's faithfulness and how He answers prayers!