This week we’re grateful for our first ‘mostly boring’ update! Clifford is now 5 weeks actual, 29 weeks adjusted. After an unimaginably difficult week, he has had tremendous improvement. He’s continued to pee and has lost most of the fluid build up, meaning he is back to a normal weight of 1lb 8oz. They started feeding him breast milk again, although a very small amount to start, we are hopeful he can start to gain weight.

The rest of this week continued to be scary. After Clifford was able to pee and get his kidneys working again, he had a good night. Being in a more stable place the next day, the doctors decided to send him into surgery to get a longer-term picc line placed for his meds, blood draws, and transfusions.

Let me start off by saying that by the grace of God, Clifford is still with us and still fighting. We are truly in awe of this little guy's strength. 24 hours ago, I wasn't sure what this update would look like. Yesterday he still hadn't produced urine (48+ hours total), and we weren't sure how much time Clifford had left with us. Feeling helpless, we did the only thing we could do, surround him with love.

We wish we had better news to share, but Clifford took a turn over the weekend. While we finally got negative blood cultures and cleared the fungal infection (and pneumonia), the doctors think it's likely he has contracted a new bacterial infection. With this and everything his little body has been through over the past couple of weeks, his kidneys have stopped functioning, and he isn't producing urine.

On Monday morning (8/28) Cliff's oxygen needs shot up to 100%, and he was still struggling to breathe. This was a drastic change from a stable weekend before, concerning us and the doctors. We immediately ran tests, confirming that baby boy was battling numerous infections; pneumonia in his lungs and a rare fungal infection in his blood.