Josiah next to a bank note to show his size – he’s actually grown a massive 1.5 cm

On Monday night Josiah Oswald marked his first month of life.

He is now stable and despite the fact that his breathing took a step back last week and he had to return to CPAP he has now gone back on canula oxygen and is stable with regard to breathing. He takes a dailing intake of caffeine to stimulate him to breathe – however, I’m sure many people reading often feel a similar way on their way to Starbucks.

One of the big issues now is size – he NEEDS to grow. Last week he hovered around the 2lb mark – today he was 2lb 1oz, but he needs to increase. His blood pressure has thankfully come down somewhat, so they decided today to take him off the diaretic that he had been on to bring it down – I jokingly called it his ‘slim fast’ plan. but I guess he doesn’t need to slim at this point. As he has an ileostomy one of the issues is that the food doesn’t stay in the gut as long as it would normally so it is a little harder for him to get all the nutrients that he would otherwise have gotten. He is now receiving 15ml of Shari’s milk every 3 hours with fortifiers to increase the calorie intake.

The big event of this week was his first eye exam. He has been diagnosed with stage one Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) – it is more common the smaller and younger the baby is. Josiah is certainly one of the smallest babies in the NICU. ROP is the disorganised growth of blood cells in the retina – which could resolve itself in the best case scenario or could lead to retinal detachment in the worst cases – Stevie Wonder is blind because of ROP. They do weekly eye exams and we are believing that it will resolve itself with the blood cells continuing to grow straight rather than clustered.

The other thing which would be great for you to pray for would be Shari’s milk output – breast pumping isn’t exactly the funnest thing in the world!

Apart from that the normal preemie issues continue in terms of bouts of bradycardia – the heart stopping and breathing stopping.

But that’s about it for now – so continue to pray for his growth.

We are so grateful for all your prayers and support during this season – Thank you for believing with us for his complete healing, wholeness and growth – we are looking forward to the day that we bring him home.

Blessings

Jono, Shari and Josiah