We're still alive...

What a crazy few weeks it's been. I think we've kind of gotten a feel for what it would be like to adopt a new baby... having time to prep, get life in order, both of us healthy and kinda living a normal life one day, and the next day, we bring home a baby... like a load of groceries from Costco! (but i guess if she were a Costco baby, she would have come in a more economy size... she'd be what they give out as samples on the baby aisle  :) ) 

All in all, she's been a fantastic little baby. She sleeps pretty regularly, and eats well. The pediatrician has given us the green light to watch for her natural cues more when it comes to sleeping and eating, rather than the strict 3 hour schedule she needed to be on for a while... which has been nice to get a whopping 4 hours of sleep at a time on good nights ;) Lucky for Steph, Avery hasn't quite graduated up to breast-feeding yet... so while it's still not a ball for her pumping regularly, I can take half the feedings.

The last time we were at the pediatrician, she weighed 5 lbs. 7 oz....which was basically an ounce a day for that week... so that's really good. It takes all that I have not to add a scoop of my protein shake powder to her bottles to give her a little edge...but I read somewhere that I probably shouldn't do that ;) She has another appointment tomorrow, so we'll see where she tips the scales this time! She's also up for immunizations: round 2 next week, as well as her second RSV shot... Keep your fingers crossed that the only side effect will that she'll be really sleepy...I'm kinda hoping for that one!

Her due date was the 12th of October, so they consider that when talking about development. She's almost 4 months old, but about 3 weeks old, adjusted age! So, on some things, she's already on track, and on some things, she'll be on track with her adjusted age... She's just a beautiful, normal little baby though...and we're so lucky for that. She'll still seem teeny to you, but she's gotten bigger since coming home even. She's awake for longer periods of time now... which, when she's pleasant and doesn't have gas, is a lot of fun. She'll just look up with her big blue eyes, and stare at you, and pose her little hands like she were in a photo-shoot (she's probably already accepted the fact that with me around, her life will be a photo-shoot anyway... )

She's definitely figured out that she can cry now...and she makes good use of this newfound talent. Not just crying to cry...you can usually tell why, and help her out....but she seems to have no concept of volume... the louder the better, even if it's only for a little bit....then she'll get this calm, serene look on her face like "did you hear something???" She also stinks really really really bad... I won't go in to discussing diapers...but the by product of sugar and spice and everything nice has got to be sulphur, and death and everything evil!

Steph just had a little shower with her friends at work, and I spent a day making a slide show for it... it's long, but it's fun for us to look back on..... I think it will work on here. I needed to post it, because the copy I sent to the shower had a couple of music tracks on top of the ones in the background, so at parts, it was more like a baby hard-rock music video than a cute little deal to make all the ladies misty-eyed... dang!  Anyway..I'll work on getting a smaller version here online... 

It's been so great to hear from all of you..old and new friends and family....

Shhh.... she's sleeping....

Okay, I have about 15 minutes before feeding time.... I think I can get a quick post in... where do I even start???? So many things have come to me to write about... and I still trying to find the balance between getting a memory written or typed so that it will last ... and just enjoying the moment.... I've been doing a lot of the latter lately :)

So, from here I can look into the living room and see a baby sleeping in her swing... The long awaited day finally came, and we were able to walk out of the hospital as a complete family for the first time. I'll need to type up the story for our sakes in a bit...so you'll have to put up with random flashbacks if you're trying to keep up with us...

Having her home has been the biggest relief. It's been so many emotions all at once: elation, fear, exhaustion, peace... but mostly just the relief of having the other shoe drop, of closing a chapter and starting a new one... of not having to drive 45 minutes every day just to sit and look at her!! Can I tell you how incredible it is to finally just hold her... feed her... hold her again... then let her fall asleep on your chest... and nobody says: Looks like it's time to put her back...

A great blessing of having a NICU baby is that she's already on a schedule... and she sticks to it really well. She eats every 3 hours.. then sleeps. Sometimes she fusses a bit but it's nothing that a binky or the vibration of her swing can't make her forget about. She eats pretty well... still falls asleep by the end of her bottle sometimes, but that's less and less as the days go by.... We're excited for the days when she doesn't have to wake up to eat at night.. but she's never really kept us up... so we won't complain!

The absolute best is when she's wide awake...and just looks up at you with her big eyes and just watches you... She's such a sweet, pleasant baby...we really are lucky.

I'll try to be more regular about our postings.. but I wanted to get this one up before too many more people asked if we'd dropped off the face of the earth ... :) Thank you all for your great notes and posts and letters and texts of congratulations... you've been with us through it all... it's a life lesson in charity we'll never forget....

Finally...

Going to the zoo...

We live in such a time-warp. In a way...we are at the twilight of the longest day of our lives and at the same time... at the dawn after our longest night... Soon, we'll be able to squeeze free from the space between play and pause and we'll be able to start turning with the world again...

So far, this week has been much better for Avery. It may have been very wishful thinking to try to get her home last week... with her immunizations and RSV shot all in one week. She just took a break and recovered...and has gradually gotten back on her pony this week...

I will tell a better story later... but for now, we've cleaned our apartment...again... and we'll be making one more trip up to the hospital today...

They say to just tell your baby that you're just going to the zoo, lest they catch on to the plan and something else delays the trip home... 

It feels like Christmas morning.... finally!

Christmas Eve....or Groundhog Day..??

Steph and I are worn out tonight...so this won't be a long post. We've had so many of you call and text and leave comments here about Avery coming home....you all are so great. She's still just kinda struggling getting on her own two feet with her feedings. She had an exhausting few days...and is just kinda putt-putting along with her weight gaining and bottles. For a few days there...it took her twice as long to take about half the normal amount of milk that she usually does...and her weight gains aren't really tipping the scales. So, she's kinda on stand-by until she can get some momentum.

She's still so sweet and doing well otherwise. She's just not quite ready to leave the NICU behind, apparently. We would rather she gets the kinks out while the nurses and docs are in charge, instead of here at home...at least they know what they are doing! We are doing our best to keep our spirits up... she'll be home soon. It will be so nice to kinda take our lives off of pause...

It's coming...

Okay...so just by way of clarification...now that I have a couple of free seconds before I hit the sack tonight... one of the last things the babies have to do before they are allowed to go home is to pass the car seat challenge: survive two hours in your car seat without setting off all your alarms! Since sleeping through most of her life so far hasn't been much of a problem for Avery...it wasn't a huge surprise that she passed that test with flying colors last night!

The only thing standing between her and home now is that she has to show that she can consistently gain weight on her lower calorie milk. Being a preemie...she needs more calories than the 20/oz that breast milk contains, so you can fortify it with more calories by adding formula. We can fortify it at home to about 24 calories/oz....so they have weaned her down to that this week from about 32 I think, but want to see that it won't be a big set-back for her once she gets home. She's actually hit a plateau, and lost some weight the last few days..but we have to take into account that she got her immunizations this week, and it takes her little body a bit to get used to the lower calorie milk. Tonight when we called, she was back up to 4 lbs. 7 oz.... so we are just praying that it will continue the upward trend.
The doctors have told us that Saturday is our target day... so that basically means that we are going to ask all of you to come up to the hospital and escort us home. If you have access to any large vehicles: suburbans, hummers, limos, 18 wheelers etc.... go ahead and bring them. Also, if you are or know of any police officers or anyone with sirens and lights on their vehicle... we invite you to go ahead and clear the way for us. We'll basically set up a moving fortress, and our poor little civic (which has already paid the price once this month!) will be safely in the middle, with Avery in her little car-seat, and Stephanie sedated in the back seat next to her!

Also, more great news, is that our good friends and NICU neighbors, the Forsyths get to bring Zack home a day before us! Zack was born exactly a month before Avery...so they've really earned their big day! We have been so grateful to have them there with us through all of this...we've gained life-long friends by carrying each other through this crazy adventure. Send all your prayers out to them on Friday and get them home safely!
As if it were foreshadowing our next big challenge to come, Avery got her RSV shot today. For those of you who don't know (and believe me, I was not exactly in the know on these things before Avery either...), RSV is the fancy term for the common cold...which is mostly an annoyance to most adults, but can be deadly for preemies. When people talk about RSV season, they are referring to the cold/flu season...which lasts from about October to March, give or take a few weeks, each year. We are so lucky to live in a time where they have a shot...a SUPER expensive shot, but a shot nonetheless, which can inoculate babies against RSV. It's a monthly shot...so she'll get it throughout the season... lets all just pray for all these babies that they don't get it. Our challenge as parents is to do all we can to keep her from getting it. So, we had the nurses and docs sit us down and tell us over and over that we need to be VERY careful not to go out to any group events, not expose her to other young children (just because most kids get sick from other kids...who got sick from other kids etc.) and to make absolute sure that our visitors aren't even a little bit sick. So, that means we're gonna have a pretty long, non-social winter...but it's worth it if we can keep our baby healthy and alive.

We are so blessed to have come this far. One of our doctors wisely counseled us to take some time now to cry it out together, talk it out...get our worries and fears from the last two months out....because when she's home, that time will be over. She'll need her future to be filled with our hope...not our fear. So, for us...that's the only way to go.

Guess What....

Well... I don't have a lot of time this morning for a long, drawn out post... I'll just let a picture do the talking for me for now...

Look what we get to bring up to Avery today...!!