Meet James Douglas Gravitt

Jimmie is still doing really well on the cpap. Rachael said they leave the vent machine in the room with the babies for a while just in case and that they moved Jimmie's out of his room earlier! (-: She's taking that to mean they don't think he's gonna need it. I posted some pictures below and the second one shows the cpap machine coming from his nose. The first and last show him still on the vent.

They did another scan of his brain yesterday. It was negative for brain bleeds again so that is wonderful! Keep praying for that!

The pic line he has in right now is a special one in his umbilical artery. Those need to be removed after about 7 days so this evening they will sedate Jimmie and do a small surgical procedure to remove the umbilical one and put in a more permanent one in his shoulder or leg. This line is where he receives meds and i.v. type nourishment. He isn't able to take enough of Rachael's breast milk yet to give him everything he needs. Pray that Jimmie stays safe and that this procedure goes well. By the way-- correction on his feedings-- Rach told me that they are still feeding him her breast milk in the feeding tube every 3 hours, but they bumped it up to 2ml.

While Jimmie has had the umbilical pic line in he's only had to receive 1 blood transfusion. He's not losing blood on his own, but actually because they have to take so much from him to monitor and test how he is doing so they can best treat him and keep him as safe and healthy as possible. They had a special machine that could take his blood out through the umbilical artery, test it and then return it to Jimmie's body. With a regular pic line this won't be possible so now he'll need more transfusions.

However the upside to this is that once the umbilical line is out Rachael and Justin will be able to actually hold him!!! Rachael is hoping to hold him for the first time tomorrow- he'll be 1 week old then!

The nurse has told Rachael that Jimmie has really great muscle tone for his gestational age. She said most 24 weekers can't do things like bend their elbow. Rachael says Jimmie moves a lot!! They also have told Rachael that girls tend to do better with prematurity than boys do. The nurse said Jimmie is off the charts for how well he's doing as a boy, that he's acting like a girl. I think this is probably the only instance that Justin would tolerate or be happy about someone saying his son is acting like a girl! LOL! (-:

For the first few days they had the humidity in Jimmie's isolette up really high to protect Jimmie's very fragile skin. Mom said that Justin was calling it Jimmie's jungle and that Jimmie was King of the jungle. (-: Mom says Justin gives Jimmie little pep talks like, "alright now son-- buck up, come on now!! " (-: I'm quite sure Jimmie takes after his daddy with his strong fighting spirit. And I'm sure it urges him on when daddy encourages him! You are so awesome Jimmie!

I have not heard anything new about if the PDA duct in his heart is a problem nor about results of the testing for infection on the placental tissue and the culturing of Jimmie's blood. I'll post about that information when I know more.

Enjoy meeting/seeing James Douglas Gravitt our tiny little fighter.

Below- this first picture uncle Eric took about 3 hours after he was born.


Below-Jimmie's little hand holding Justin's index finger.



Below- This is yesterday- going from the vent to cpap. Those are his nurse's hands.


Below- Jimmie the bandit. He was under the bili-light again yesterday for a while so he had to wear his mask.