Ben Update

I guess I should let y'all know what's going on. Thank you SO much for the lovely comments on my sweet boy.
I was released from the hospital Wednesday (finally), but my little guy wasn't. I had a fever when Ben was delivered, and his breathing was a little fast so he had to go to the "transitional" nursery right after he was born to be monitored and to have some labs done. They finally brought him up to me about 4 hours after he was born, it was a LONG wait!
So then he had been having difficulties eating... which is fine, because he's new and needed to learn. But we had the lactation lady come in and help and we couldn't get him to latch on or if we did- he'd fall asleep. So I'd pump for 5 minutes before and then try and feed him and he still struggled. So we'd have to supplement him with a bottle. Tuesday night I was EXHAUSTED- the night before (which is the night I had him) I probably had only gotten three hours of sleep and after 11-12 hours of labor my little body couldn't function. So we decided to have the nurse take him to the nursery across the hall to feed him and hang out with him so we could get some sleep before we went home the next day. I'm glad we did because with in an hour of sending him in there- they noticed there was something wrong with his breathing which had been an issue right after he was born. So they sent him back down to the transition nursery. Which worried me to tears... he was there until about 9am the next morning and then was admitted to the NICU. He had three tests done and two out of three were fine- but the one that was a little elevated worried them, and he still wasn't eating very well or enough. Plus his breathing was pretty fast still. All of this on the day he was supposed to come home with us! Obviously that wasn't going to happen. Since then he's gotten so much better, he's out of NICU after only being there for a day. They were worried there for a second about his billirubin levels and they've gone down. His breathing problem subsided yesterday morning and the test that indicated infection was going down as well. He's been such a little trooper and I'm so proud of him and how much he's pulled through.
Yesterday my mom and I were able to go and see him for about 4 hours and spend some good time with him during two feedings. After I fed him the first time he stayed awake for about a 1/2 hour afterwards and let me just talk to him and sing and he never looked away. It was the most amazing feeling in the whole world. There was definitely a bonding moment there. I gave him a good pep talk and told him we needed him home... and that evening he started eating more than "required" and by the evening they had taken him off the strange table he'd been on for two days and put him in a regular bassinet and he looked just about ready to go home. They had even taken the feeding tubes out of him. Ryan and I went and held him for 2 hours last night and he was asleep the whole time. Couldn't get him to wake up! Anyway, we're hoping that he can come home today. I'm trying REALLY hard not to get my hopes up because this last week has kind of been a week of ups and downs and disappointments. But I just called and he was eating and the nurse said he did really well through the night. I am going to go get ready now and go see him before I have to take the special care CPR class before he can be released. I'll keep y'all posted. Prayers are needed! Thank you for them anyway!
Here are some pictures! I took some last night but can't find the cord to get them off the camera! AHH!