First full day

27 hours into life, and things are looking good.

Amie spent last night in the hospital, and will do the same tonight. She is recovering well and has slightly caught up on her rest. I think another night of quality hospital sleep will do her well. Tomorrow she will come home.

The nameless boy now has one: Ashton Jeffrey Clark. We told him his name earlier today but he did not seem to care.

Ashton moved from room 1 to room 2 in the NICU, kind of a graduation from 1:1 patient care to 3:1 patient care. He did not love the move and the stress of being messed with during that process. He cried so hard that when he stopped and calmed down he also forgot to keep breathing, which caused his heart rate to slow. They call it "A &B's" which means Apnea and bradycardia which means low heart rate and stopped breathing. Apparently this is relatively common with kids this size. He still breaths only room air, and recovers well as this has happened 3-4 times since moving. Some babies need to be reminded to breath. So far he reminds himself that it doesnt feel good to not breath and therefore starts breathing again.

Around 1pm today he had his first 5ml of breast milk. Baby's first meal. Now he is on a 3 hour interval feeding schedule starting at 3pm. They are feeding him through a small tube in his nose, but 2x per day Amie is going to the NICU to practice what natural, non-tube feeding would be like. He instinctally knew just what to do. I think with a couple of practices he will be feeding on his own, which is a HUGE step in being able to gain weight and come home.

Visiting here is tough. They restrict to only 2 people, one of which always has to be the parents and asked us to keep visitors to a minimum. Not sure how that is going to work when there are so many people who are dying to see this kid. When he comes home we hope all of you will come visit. For now we will update this blog a couple of times per day to hopefully give you the answers to all that you are looking for.

If i can figure out the technology it will auto post to his website: http://www.ashtonclark.net

If i dont figure it out, and any of you reading this are more of a geek than i, please help.