4.07.06: smiles at last

After nearly a month of witnessing sad, worried, angry and hurt expressions, it was so refreshing to get lots of smiles out of Avery today. He also appeared significantly more calm and relaxed during periods of the day.

And would you believe, his first tooth finally broke through today? It looks as though a few more might be right behind it. It's hard to visualize Avery with teeth. I'm going to miss that gummy grin.

Avery's feedings were changed from continuous (pumped at 35 ml an hour) to bolus feedings (110 ml over a half hour 5x a day, with continuous feeding overnight). So far, he's tolerating it all just fine. If he gets through tomorrow morning without any signs of feeding intolerance, then we expect to bring him home in the afternoon!

The next several weeks will be full of lots of speech therapy, OT/PT home visits, and multiple follow-ups with the pulmonologist and pediatrician. With some extra help, we'll get Avery back on track in no time.

(Thanks so much to everyone for your supportive emails and thanks for being patient with us. We hope to have the opportunity to be more responsive soon, when everyone is home and healthy. We truly appreciate all the kind words and it's reassuring to know there are so many people out there rooting for Avery while he recovers).