Today has been another one of those long days and very tiring days. We were able to go to the 2:30 and 8:30 "touch times" today. Emory is 3 weeks old today (37 weeks gestation) and sometimes it seems like he has been in the NICU for 3 months =). Emory is still doing good taking his 4 bottle feedings a day. They have increased his calorie amount at each feeding in order to put some weight on him.

After doing a cbc on Tuesday and having the blood issues....the latest report is as follows:

Emory's white blood count is now normal. The cultures came back negative. Although he is not getting antibiotics anymore, they are leaving the iv in his scalp until they know exactly when he will get the blood transfusion.

Claude and I both have the same blood type as Emory. Claude went to the Red Cross yesterday and gave blood for Emory to have for his transfusion. They are currently sending it through a process called "leukoreduction and eradiate". Basically, they are stripping it free of everything except for the red blood cells. That is all Emory needs right now. When Claude's blood is ready (which should be in a couple of days), they will get it to Emory and the process will take a couple of hours for him to receive it all. At least, that's the current plan. Once the blood is in, they will later check his levels, and administer more blood if necessary. Otherwise, if the levels are good, then they are done with that for now.

More than likely, the blood transfusion will take place in a few days. Beyond that, the only thing keeping him from coming home is his eating. Like I said before, he has to eat so many calories in a day in order to gain weight for surgery. Although he weighs enough now for surgery if we had to do it tomorrow, the cardiologist would still like for him to be bigger in weight and age. Emory is currently at Fayette Piedmont Hospital in Fayetteville and will have his open heart surgery done at Eggleston Hospital in Atlanta. The doctors and surgeons at Eggleston prefer for babies to be a certain weight and for their blood counts to be at a certain level before surgery. That is why they are focusing so much on those two things. Once he does come home, we will visit the cardiologist every week until surgery just for them to keep an eye on him and all these factors.

Thank you seems so pointless to say sometimes, but please know that we are very thankful and appreciative to everyone for all the prayers, cards, meals, babysitting, etc. Please keep the prayers coming our way!

In Him,

Twila