Luka's First Graduation!

 

Luka's last 'cares' in the Special Care Nursery in his
big boy bed

To mix things up a bit, Chris took the morning shift, leaving Susan to run a few errands.  These included picking up a bag of stuff from Dili that a willing 'mule' carried on the flight this morning, and also getting a printer and scanner to facilitate the bureaucratic part of birthing a dual-citizen in a third country (more on that later).  Imagine the shock when Susan returned to the nursery only to find the isolette (like an incubator) gone!  Instead of the familiar box with holes for the hands and arms, there was a regular nursing cot (looks like a clear plastic baby bath).  After containing my excitement, the nurse informed us that not only did Luka shed his isolette, but that he would in fact graduate from the 'Special Car Nursery' (one step down from the NICU) to the 'General Nursery' today.

View of the General Nursery

Of course this meant that he is now able to regulate his own body temperature (a big requirement around here), and that he is not only stable enough, but also progressing well on other fronts.  Funny thing is that news such as this is met with mixed emotions from parents.  While we are clearly proud of him for excelling and exceeding all expectations for a 30-weeker, now one week old - it is also accompanied by some reservations such as 'is he ready?', 'will he receive the same level of care?' and other questions.  Our Preemie book talks about this, and ensures all parents of preemies, that yes, they are ready to move on, and yes, they will receive the care that they need, which is understandably slightly less than another infant who still battles to hold feeds down and cannot yet maintain his body temperature.

Our new digs.

As if this was not good enough news for one day, we also received his SBR (jaundice test) numbers, and they have gone down by themselves since the last test, without the use of lights.  This indicates that his liver is functioning well enough to be flushing the last of this out of his system through all of those healthy bowel movements we get to clean between feeds.

Luka actively sucking his thumb
during diaper change this morning

We are incredibly grateful for this progress, but acutely aware that it is still a long 4-6 weeks that await us with Luka bound to the hospital until he is closer to his due date (end of May).