As many you have heard, Grair is unfortunately back in the hospital. This time it is for something different than his heart: RSV. We are at Saint Elizabeth’s in Lincoln, and have been here since Tuesday night. Dr. David came to our house on Tuesday night after concerns with Grair not eating well, and vomiting. His initial diagnosis was a respiratory viral infection, most likely RSV. So we checked into the hospital, and Grair has been up...

Grair has been home almost three weeks and is doing awesome. Due to his heart complications, his immune system is expected to be weak, therefore the doctors have encouraged us to keep him home as much as possible, and we have done just that. Much to Melissa’s dismay, he didn’t even get his photo taken with Santa! 🙂 Grair has been eating, sleeping and pooping just as expected of any newborn. His weight gain is great; averaging...

Grair Connor Meranda was born last night at 8:24 PM! Melissa started feeling contractions early Saturday morning, and we came to the hospital around 2:00 in the afternoon. At 5:15, the doctor broke Melissa’s water in order to speed up the process. It worked, and Melissa had to only push twice! Grair is a small baby, but the doctors are not concerned about his weight. A few small side effects of his weight are starting to show (lack of body...

Grair is home! We were able to come home yesterday afternoon with Grair, and have begun to settle into life at home with two children (something we originally had planned to do three weeks ago). And after many doctor consultations, we are without oxygen! He looks just like a regular newborn coming home from the hospital, with a chest-long incision. The next few months will require a new level of detail with Grair’s recovery. More doctors...

Grair has been doing exceptionally well considering his heart condition two weeks ago. We are in the NICU working on feeding, and he is progressing nicely. The staff has come up with a world-renowned feeding pathway that Grair is working on. It is basically a combination of oral and tube feeds, with the plan of 100% oral feeds before releasing him. As it stands now, we are on the pathway to achieve this mid-week. However, anything can change....

Grair’s recovery has been moving in the right direction ever since the surgery. He has stayed strong and persevered through every significant milestone. Yesterday, another milestone was reached: moving out of the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). In a normal chain of events, Grair would have moved to the fifth floor. However since he is so small, he was moved back to the NICU. This was only done because the NICU staff is better trained...