Eli Update – and possible timetable for coming home!!

I just got an update and some new pictures from JC!

Eli’s doing great. He’s up to 3 lbs 7 oz and is still eating as much as they will feed him. He definitely knows when meal times are and will let you know if you’re a little late. They took him off of aminophylline, which helped him to regulate his heart rate, on Friday. It takes two days for him to get the aminophylline out of his system and then they start a five day countdown. If he can go five days without a bradycardia (drop in heart rate) then he gets to come home. The doctors and nurses have warned us that it is not uncommon for babies to have these when they come off of the medicine. If he has one it restarts the five day countdown. We’re trying not to get too excited, but this means he could come home as early as Friday. We, of course want him home as soon as possible, but we also want to make sure he’s ready. Lindsay is feeling no ill effects of the blood patch and her headaches are gone. Since they put her on blood pressure medication last week, her BP has dropped. It’s still higher than normal, especially for her, but nowhere close to as high as it was.

In other Zannis news, My parent’s (really my little brother’s) dog Shadow had her puppies during the night Saturday night!! Mom and Nick stayed up until 4:30 am helping her deliver EIGHT puppies. . .they went to bed thinking she was done, but when they woke up and counted, there were NINE!!! I will post pictures as soon as mom emails me some. She said that they were all black (their Lab is black), but some had some white spots around their paws. Still no luck on identifying the Daddy, though. It’s gonna be a hard child support battle to win. :)