Samuel's Birthday Party!

We delayed and finally got there!  We celebrated Sam's birthday last Saturday evening.  I think he had fun too!  Here are some photos to see some of the festivities:

The cake that everyone got to eat.

Samuel was sort of indifferent during gift opening, but don't let that fool you, he's loved playing with them!  Especially clapping the pieces of this wooden puzzles together!

Again indifferent, but he does enjoy the camera, when we pull it out for him.  :-)

I think we did most of the wrapping paper work, but sometimes he'd grab a piece of paper and throw it to the side.

It took a few tries, but he eventually pulled this gift out.

Sitting under his pile of goodies.

So...  What are we doing now he wonders.

Getting reading for his smash cake!

Ok, so I have this cake in front of me, what do you expect me to do with it?

Ahh!  I have frosting on my fingers!

And it won't come off!  (He kept trying to shake the frosting off his hands...)

Now to dig in...

Yup, I pretty much demolished it!

Except for 1st, it was my first birthday and you shouldn't forget!

So that was a lot of photos, but I figured it would tell the story of his birthday party better than me.  We had some pork loin for supper with some fruit salads and veggie tray.  We also printed off monkey coloring sheets to be colored, we will be putting those in a little book for Samuel.

We decided to celebrate his birthday late (he's about 14 months old now, but only 11 adjusted) because his birthday (January 27th) is super close to Christmas and he just didn't act like a one year old at all.  He definitely acts older now and it isn't even his should have been due date yet!  In the future we do not plan on celebrating his birthday 2 months late, it just fit our situation really well this year!

We had fun and are thankful to everyone who came and made his 1st Birthday Party a good one!

Due Dates

WOW!  I cannot hardly believe it's been since November since I posted last!  I guess that makes me the slacker, ha!  Anyways...

Due Dates are REALLY important, even though babies are generally not born on them!  Samuel turned 1 year old (is that really possible?!?!) on January 27th, however we have not reached his due date yet, which makes him just over 10.5 months adjusted now.

He's doing great though!  During the day he likes to keep busy grabbing any papers/keys within reach, watching Momma work out and just generally causing any mischief he can get his hands on.  The music set and little car Oma and Opa gave him last weekend have been great for funneling his energy!

That said he's not mobile.... yet.  I truly believe he is able to crawl, just doesn't.  He does LOVE being on his tummy and goes in circles like it's nobody's business and eventually makes it a few feet across the floor.  He is increasingly enjoying standing (with support), but is definitely not interested in taking any steps at this point.  My only request is that he is fully mobile by August (more on that below if you haven't heard our news).

Currently he is also experimenting with dropping his morning nap, which means he will only have 1 afternoon nap.  I'm saddened by that because I love having 2 nap times to do things or nap myself, but alas I'll adjust to only 1 nap time!

So I really want him mobile in the next few months because...  I want to deal with the challenges that come with a mobile child before we have a newborn!  Samuel's baby brother or sister (don't even bother asking if we know the gender, we don't and we're going to keep it that way until birth) is due August 29th.  Samuel's due date was April 28th, so I guess we are trying our hand at the other A month.

So far this pregnancy has been easier on my than Samuel's.  I believe I had more morning sickness problems (which were still more naseau than actual sickness) this time, but overal my energy level has been much higher.  With Samuel I was simply exhausted and everyone would tell me that that is just the way it is when you're pregnant.  I really wanted to start asking people if they'd borrow my level of exhaustion for a few days and then tell me that it's normal.  It was not normal, I was more tired than most pregnant women and it only went away when Samuel was born.

A contributing factor to my exhaustion level might have been allergies.  Due to getting sick a lot last fall I switched doctor's, went on allergy meds and have had more energy than I have had in years.  In fact Ben told me one night that he had no idea what to do with me having all of that energy (that was just before we got pregnant).  I was definitely tired during first trimester, but it wasn't anything a nap couldn't help.  With Samuel sleep did not help my level of tiredness, I was simply tired all the time.

Right now everything is going completely normal with this pregnancy (and other than exhaustion, it did at this point with Samuel as well).  At the last check-up our baby was definitely hiding from the doctor and it took her quite a while to find him/her so she could get a decent read for herself (and so I could hear well too of course).  So this child is also proving to be quite active in the womb just like big brother.  My doctor asked me if I could feel the baby move already, well I hadn't at that point.  Since that appointment I think I have felt somethings that felt like it did when Samuel moved, but I am not 100% certain.  I'm sure I'll feel the baby in the near future!

That is the big update for now!  Hopefully I will not forget about my blog in the future and keep everyone updated!  We have been quite busy this winter and the coming months do not appear to be slowing down at all!  I'm loving my time home with Samuel!

Happy 6/3 Month Birthday Sam!

So today is a BIG day!  Sam turned 6 months today and he turns 3 months old tomorrow.  We are happy to also announce that we have a very healthy normal baby!  Last Tuesday (after driving back from Fort Wayne on Monday) we went in to have a post NICU developmental check.  He checked out great!  Nothing too unusual came up, which I count as a win.  The one thing we have to watch out for is how he holds his head.  He does a fantastic job at holding his head up... tilted to the left.  They found that he has some tight muscles on that side of his neck because of it, so now we get to do some stretches to help him fix that.

They weren't really worried about it though.  They said that babies that tend to favor one side like that (in Sam's case the left side) tend to also have issues turning their heads completely both directions, which is something Samuel did just fine with.  So as long as we are stretching him and encouraging him to hold his head straight, it should be something that corrects fairly quickly.  If it's not working we might have to explore different avenues to correct it.

We have not seen any rolling over as of yet and no, he's not crawling.  But that's fine!  I'm sure before we know it we'll be chasing him around the house and wishing he weren't doing any of those things!  At this point, neither of those are reasons to think he's behind developmentally, he's doing just fine, and I'm sure he'll start them both soon enough.

He has started to enjoy standing on his feet when you're holding him.  Normally he only ever did it when he's angry (what baby does when they're angry?).  Now he's starting to do it from time to time when he's not angry!

They told us Samuel will probably start squealing more and sure enough I think we've heard him squeal more this week than ever before!  It's like he was waiting for permission!  ;-)

To celebrate Samuel's birthday my Mom is coming out for a visit!  Ok, maybe she just happens to be coming now...  Regardless she's driving out here.  We're going to have someone watch Sam while we go get massages.  Something I practically never do, but there was a groupon for a really good price!

I think he's decided to nap really well today to celebrate.  He hasn't seemed to nap well in the last few weeks, but his night sleep has been fantastic!

We'll take a photo with the bunny today, then you'll really be able to see the difference!

Sam at less than a week old and at just over 6 months.  I promise you it's the same bunny!

Happy ZERO Birthday! Err, I mean 3 month Birthday!

Time has really flown since Samuel came home!  He came home about a month ago now.  I can't hardly believe it!  Some things important things have happened and I will focus on those in this post.

We went to the eye doctor 3 times since he came home and he has now been declared ROP free!  That is great news!  He saw less and less each time until he saw nothing of the ROP left.  So he doesn't have to go back to that doctor for 4 months.  Yippee!

He has steadily been gaining weight since that first bit of weight loss.  He is now about 7lb 10oz.  We'll get the freshest weight tomorrow!

The pediatricians office has been interesting...  They haven't quite figured out that he was born 3 months early and that makes things a little different for him than regular full-term babies.  I also thought that his records were sent over from the NICU, but now I question if they truly were.  They were trying to get me to schedule a "2 month" check-up to give him his 2 month shots.  If they truly were looking at his record they would have seen that he received those before his discharge...  So we are in the process of getting switched over to a different pediatrician, who also happens to be a neonatologist.  The only trick is he's really good so his schedule is totally booked!  We do finally have an app. scheduled with him, though not until the end of the month...

We still have a visiting nurse coming to check weight and he is still on oxygen.  We are hoping and praying that he can quit the oxygen soon.  I personally don't think he really needs it anymore, but alas, we shall see, when the visiting nurse comes tomorrow I want to talk with her about that more and see what she thinks.  She could have some good suggestions about getting in with the doctor and deciding further about oxygen.

That being said, Sam did give us a little bit of a scare last weekend and we ended up at the doctor's office on Saturday (his due date).  He kept dropping his oxygen really low just after eating (and just before too because he thinks diaper changes are the worst form of torture known to mankind...).  So we went in and the doctor thinks Sam has some reflux.  We've been trying some simple remedies at home (like holding him more vertically for about a half hour after eating) and he seems to be reacting well to that.

We also have Sam sleeping on his own again!  If you remember when he first came home from the NICU he decided that he needed to be held 24/7, well we didn't completely agree.  Though we LOVE holding our son, it is nice to be able to have him sleep without being held as well.  So now we have him sleeping mainly in his bassinet and occasionally on us.  Let's just say Mom and Dad are now getting a bit better sleep (even if it is just in apr. 2 hour increments...).

As of last check-up we decided to try only 2 bottles of fortified milk a day.  This means I get to nurse him one more feeding a day and I don't have to pump AS much.  Please pray that he still shows good weight gain with one less fortified bottle a day.

I think that is it with big updates.  We are loving having him home though it definitely is more tiring having him home (though I still have not been as tired as I was when I was pregnant).  Maybe the next big thing we can work on (other than getting him OFF oxygen) would be getting him to sleep longer at night?  We can only hope!

Friday, February 10 - "Bubble" Bath

Happy TWO WEEK BIRTHDAY Sam!!!

When Ben and I got home Wednesday night we were both so tired that we took our time getting ready in the morning.  I got to the NICU at about 11:20 Thursday morning.  When I got there our nurse for the day asked me what my plans were for the next half an hour and I told her that Ben was going to be coming in shortly and we wanted to eat lunch.  So she said we could probably wait a little bit for Ben to get there before giving Sam a bath if we wanted to be part of that process.  One thing they do every 2 weeks is change out the incubator, so as of Thursday, Samuel is hanging out in a fresh incubator!

So I texted Ben and we slowly gathered up items and prepped Sam for the bath.  Right as I was saying we could probably begin because Ben will show up any minute now he arrived.  This was an exciting bath because this was his first bath with soap.  So it wasn't a true bubble bath, but there were some soap bubbles in it!  Once these preemies hit 2 weeks you don't have to be as worried about the skin.  The nurse said his skin now is more like that of a full-term newborn, which is still fragile!  When he was first born his skin was extremely thin and fragile.  So YAY for stronger and thicker skin!

As we were prepping him for the bath we noticed that Sam had a nice breast milk poopy diaper.  That means he's been able to work out all that nasty meconium stuff!  We keep thanking God for things like poopy diapers.  :-)

I talked to the doctor a little later that day and he said that Sam was still hovering on the border of needing a transfusion, which is a very normal thing for preemies to need.  His blood count and oxygen levels have been just high enough to not need it, but it could still very easily need to happen this weekend or early next week.  We are so thankful at how well Sam has been doing and knowing that transfusions are common place here in the NICU we are thankful for a hospital staff that is very well trained and know just what my baby needs to get strong!

After Samuel had his bath he was very alert and awake.  He was wide eyed, squirming and looking at what was around him.  Such a good sign that he is so active.  I kangarooed with him as we fed him at 3pm and that was absolutely wonderful as usual.

That evening my friend, Rachel, stopped by.  That was good to see her.  I got to explain all the NICU baby stuff to her.  It is always fun when someone new stops by because they have no idea what all the alarms mean.  When people stop by they sometimes are surprised that Ben and I don't respond to the alarms at all.  We might glance at them and comment that he's fine and continue conversation.  This is because there are many alarms that go off in Sam's room.  Some are cause for real alarm and some are just letting you know there was a change and by the time you look it is already resolved.

Sometime's there's an alarm because Sam pulled his temperature probe out (his incubator get's kind of mad when he does that).  Only occasionally does an alarm sound that we actually have to worry about.  That is when he drops heart rate and stops breathing and doesn't get it going very quickly on his own again.  Generally he bring his heart rate immediately back up or he starts breathing right away again and that isn't a big deal.  He's being a big boy and getting himself back on track!

January 26 - My Birthday!

As many or all of you are aware a lot has happened over the last week!  I have not had time to write down thoughts and updates on all of it in my blog.  I intend on writing a post for everyday and then trying to keep it up to date after that.  So let's go to when the chaos all start.... my birthday!

In my last post I mentioned how I had stopped teaching (and by my birthday I really was missing my students) and was thankful for the ability to get a little more rest in.  I was also looking forward to the extra time I had for exercise and getting the house ready for baby.  In fact last week I went walking at the ymca every day for at least a half hour.  It felt great!

So on the day of my birthday I had no big plans.  I told Ben that I just wanted to stay home and take it easy and so he said he would make me supper that evening after work.  That morning I walked at the ymca, then I came home to take a shower before getting some work done around the house.  During my shower I had some pain that I hadn't experienced before, so I finished up quick and then laid down trying to get the baby to move off the nerve s/he seemed to be on.  Eventually the pain stopped and I went back to work on other things.

Only now I started having a new cramping sensation.  So I researched Braxton Hicks contractions versus real labor contractions and decided they were probably Braxton Hicks, as they came at very irregular intervals and by changing my activity they would stop.  Then they stopped for several hours.  I resolved to myself to keep an eye on it and call my doctor if they started again.

During that afternoon I got a lot of laundry done, cleaned the kitchen up nicer and made cookies.  It sure felt great to bake!  Then I had a student over for an hour that I was tutoring.  About then is when the contractions started again, so I did my best to ignore them while I was with my student.  After tutoring I had a Bible study to go to and as I didn't seem to be feeling too bad I went (only to find out it must have been canceled...).  While at Church I told my husband he had to go home because he hadn't been feeling well.

We got in our cars and drove home.  Ben clearly wasn't feeling well because when we got home he threw up twice!  Yet he was determined to make me supper on my birthday.  I made him lay down instead, after all we don't have to celebrate on my birthday, he could always make me supper the next day.

While he was laying down I started paying closer and closer attention to the cramping sensation.  In my mind I wanted Ben to sleep as much as he could, as I was starting to get the idea that it could be a very long night.  We were just at 27 weeks (3 months to go to the due date) and the contractions were coming every 10 minutes and lasting about the same amount of time.  Around 10:30 I woke him up and said something like, "we need to go to the hospital, I think the baby is trying to come and the baby doesn't need to be coming yet."  And off we went.  Ben grabbed a few things to work on as he figured they would observe me for a few hours and send us home...

By 11:30 they were admitting me to the hospital as I was definitely in labor with contractions now 3-4 minutes apart.  The goal when the admitted me was to stop the contractions, give me a steroid for the baby's lungs and put me on bed rest...