I got more great new about Josiah's weight last night. We weighed him and he gained a whole .14kgs in 4 days. For all of us Americans who don't use the metric system that is 5oz in just 4 days. He is now 4.0kgs or 8lbs 13oz. For those of you who have never had a child in the hospital for months that is a HUGE HUGE deal! I can't even begin to tell you how excited over that I am. We have been on the feed and grow plan for over 2.5 months and in that that time Josiah only gained .4kgs. In the last week Josiah has gained .24kgs! The only thing that has changed in the last two weeks is him getting the skim breast milk. So I have to attribute his weight gain to that! This skimming breast milk thing is very time consuming for Staci (one of our nurses) but it is paying off big for Josiah. I can't thank her enough for doing this for my baby. One of the biggest reasons that babies don't make it out of here is because they can't gain weight and therefore can't stay strong enough to fight infection or get off the ventilator. So, Josiah gaining weight is a matter of saving his precious little life. Any weight gain is huge! Thank you God for putting people in our path that have made such a huge difference in Josiah's life.

Here is the story of one 80cc bottle of milk.

First I am pumped into this tiny bottle from the breast. Then I am stuck with a label that says Wilson, Baby Erin and dated. Some nice lady at the desk in the PCICU throws me in the freezer. I sit there chilling for about a week when this man comes in with a big blue cooler, takes me and 75 of my friends throws me in the cooler and covers me with ice. We then get put in the passenger seat of this awful gold colored x-terra because there is no room in the back because for some reason this man, who got me out of the freezer, has at least two bikes and two beautiful girls in the back of the truck. I guess I'm pretty privileged though, because I get to ride in the front. The trip seems pretty long. I think like 3 1/2 hours or so depending on traffic. When my friends and I get to Greenville we're tossed into another freezer in someones garage. The man who brought me there seems pretty excited to see the people who own the garage so they must be pretty good friends. This freezer is really cold and is full of many old friends! About a 3 days later the freezer opens again, but this time the man digs past me all the way to the bottom and picks out some of my oldest friends. I wonder where he takes them. Every week the freezer opens first the man brings new friends then a couple of days later he digs and takes old friends. I am now sitting on the bottom of the freezer and I sit and wait to do my job. Finally, the man comes back and takes me out, puts me back in the cooler, back in the passenger seat and we drive all the way back to Charleston. Again I get put into a freezer. This time I wait for a few days when a wonderful woman puts me in a refrigerator and lets me thaw for a day. Then all the fun starts. She takes me to a lab pours me in a vile, places me in a centrifuge and spins me until I'm very dizzy. I then get put on ice and transported back to the PCICU. I'm then given over to my mom (I guess that's what I would call her, she's the one who made me). Mom uses a syringe and separates me into two parts, skim milk and fat. My skim milk gets put into the fridge and my fat gets put back in the freezer. Finally I get to be used! A nurse pours me into a bag with a bunch of other supplements and vitamins. From there I get to drip, drip, drip, into the sweet babies tummy I was created for! What a journey I've been on but what a great purpose I serve!