It has almost been a week since my last post, so I figured I better get on the computer to get a couple notes jotted down and post a few pictures that have been taken over the past few days. Kristen's mother, Carol, came into town on Wednesday and they quickly got to work in the kitchen to get a few things made for Thanksgiving. We brought in a pie and bagels and coffee for the NICU staff on Thursday morning. Everyone seemed very appreciative, but it was the least that we could do for such a great group of people. They are our second family right now and we wanted to bring them something to munch on when they had to be away from their families on Thanksgiving day to take care of our little one. After a short visit with Reid, we got on the road and headed up to South Carolina to visit my parents. Jennifer (my sister), Todd and their three boys were up there as well, so we had a nice visit and a yummy Thanksgiving dinner. We headed back to Atlanta on Friday after a short stay.

Reid, our little turkey, has been gobbling up his milk and is up to 5 lbs 13 oz. While I thought he looked like a "real" baby when we first got him into some clothes, he is really looking like a newborn child now with his extra weight.

His lungs are continuing to grow and has made some improvements over the past few days. His bubble CPAP has been lowered to level 4 and his oxygen requirements continue to lessen. Talking to Dr. Metcalf yesterday, he thought that he might try Reid on the high flow nasal cannulas in the next few days. We are ready to see him without the CPAP gear on his head, so this will be a welcomed change. Reid seems to be a little more agitated with the CPAP and has an easier time pulling it out of his nose. In fact, the hats that the therapists use to hold the equipment on his head are a little too small now and don't seem to work as well. My mom took one of Reid's own hats and attached the velcro strap to it and it seemed to work well yesterday. Being the domesticated guy that I am, I sewed a strap onto another one of his hats this morning. Kristen laughs at me that I know how to sew... but I think it is just a cover-up as she is jealous that she doesn't know how to sew herself. :)

Reid was to have hernia surgery this week, but looks like Dr. Metcalf wants to hold off on this now. His hernias are a little easier to reduce and they would like to wait as long as possible before they do the surgery. He will have to be intubated for the surgery and are worried that this may cause a step back in Reid's respiratory progress. Long story short, we are glad that it isn't going to be this week as I am heading out of town again this week. I am in DC until Wednesday and then flying to Chicago for a leadership conference that I was nominated for. I am one of about 350 in Accenture North America (composed of about 35,000 people) that got chosen, so it was nothing that I wanted to miss. Not sure I am overly excited to leave town again, but it should hopefully be a good networking event for me.

Reid has a follow up eye test again tomorrow. We are crossing our fingers that we will have the same result as last week with little or no growth. I will do my best to update the blog tomorrow evening with the results. Hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving!