Our (Corrected Age) 4 Day Old

Luca is one month, 3 weeks, and one day old.... but all the doctors and nurses say we should be correcting his milestones to his due date, and expecting only from him the same things that a 4 day old would be doing.  Apparently this age correction thing is supposed to go on until Luca is 2 years old, which is when preemie babies are supposed to be normally caught up.  He is still having spells where he stops breathing for a brief amount of time, which in turn makes his heart rate go down too low.  But thankfully these spells only happen during feeding, as opposed to during his sleep.  If it happens during the time he is feeding from a bottle, we are watching closely while he feeds and we can take the bottle out and help remind him to breathe (pat his back, change positions, check his tongue, etc).  He is having about 3-4 spells a day now, which is better than last week where he'd have about 7 a day.  The original goal was to have him spell free for 5 days before he would be able to come home.  But now that goal has changed a bit, because Luca is what the nurses call 'a lazy little white boy baby'(in the most loving way of course).  Apparantly Caucasian male babies typically take longer to grow out of this sort of thing. 
So, our new goals are that if Luca does have a spell, it's only during feedings, it's a quick spell that he resolves himself, and most important of all, we feel comfortable feeding him and can tell when he might have a spell.  I'm working on that last one, but I do feel pretty comfortable with feeding him now.  Plus, he will be coming home with a monitor per my request, so I feel much more comfortable about it.  The doctor believes Luca will grow out of these in time, and even term babies are known to have 1-2 spells like this a day during their first 1-2 weeks of life.  I'm going to spend the night at the hospital on Saturday night so I can get used to being with him on the monitor, and get used to taking care of him myself-while having all the medical staff in the next room should I need them.  If everything goes well, and we feel comfortable, he might come home early next week! 
But don't jump in the car to come over just yet!!  The hospital advises that we have little to no visitors at our home until sometime at the end of April or into May.  This will help minimize his risk of getting a respiratory infection, or RSV (respiratory syncytial virus)-a common cold virus to adults but which can be detrimental to babies/preemie babies.  With that being said, now I'm going to be constantly worried about Vince and Zoë bringing something into the house-being the little boogie nosed coughing toddlers that they are.  We'll just have to be extra careful I guess. 
He's just a smidge under 8 pounds now, Last night he weighed 7lbs. 15oz.  So maybe tonight he'll have broke the 8 pound mark.  Unfortunately that has nothing to do with him getting over these breathing issues, but at least he's growing, which is definitely progress! 

Me and Luca get some cuddle time

sweet little baby boy