Enjoy!!!
Jess
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
At long last...
Here are some pictures for y'all! These are some of the same that you can find on Will's blog in the slide show... this way, you can pore over them a little longer if you like.
Enjoy!!!
Jess
Enjoy!!!
Jess
Monday, August 20, 2007
Overwhelmed and overjoyed
I can barely wrap my brain around the fact that our little girl is already a month old. She is such a big girl already (and still so incredibly tiny!!) Here is an update on where she is at right now (since I know we haven't been that great at keeping you all updated! I am so sorry about that!!)
Our sweet Charlotte is now weighing in at a very hefty 3 pounds and 9 oz. She has already gained over a pound since she was born! It is easy to see it on her! She has begun to fill out her little cheeks and such. Just this past week, I really started to notice how much bigger she looks. There are several developmental milestones that you can notice with her now. She loves to suck on her pacifier... she is vigorous with it now. She gets it mostly when she is being fed (still by feeding tube... hopefully she will try the bottle again later this week. She would have been 34 weeks on Thursday and that is about the time that they get their suck/swallow reflex. She tried a bottle last week but only took about 2 or 3 CC's. Hopefully she will do better at the end of this week) this tricks her into realizing the connection between sucking and getting a full belly. She gets my breastmilk every 3 hours. Right now, she gets one oz every feeding. Not a lot to you and me but quite a bit for her little belly. She has some relux issues (common for preemies since the sphincter between the esophagus and stomach is not developed yet) but has been handling her feedings rather well. My milk is supplemented with HMF (human milk fortifier) which gives her about 24 calories per feeding rather than the usual 20 that would be in my breastmilk alone. She has been off all of her IV's for the last couple of weeks (since the 9th of August) and as of this weekend, she was moved to the "big girl room" (as we call it) of the NICU. It is much nicer and MUCH more quiet than the rest of the ward. It is known as the "feed and grow" room since she really just has to eat, feed and grow from here on out. The doctors told us on Thursday of last week that she should be ready to go in 2-3 weeks. I was elated. It was the first time that anyone has given us ANY sort of timeline at all besides the standard "she should be home by her due date." It was also good timing because I was beginning to feel incredibly down. Just the night before we had been in to see her. As we left the NICU I just felt incredibly down. I was overcome by this sense of grief. I couldn't bear it. Leaving your baby in someone else's care day in and day out has become so tiresome to me. On top of that, it felt as though there was no light at the end of the tunnel. She was still on the feeding tube and far from learning to eat by bottle. Plus, she had been having more frequent "De-sat" episodes (where her pulse oxygenation would drop substantially) during her feeds. It just felt as though things had hit a very depressing plateau. So, to hear the next day that the doctors were optimistic about her going home in 2-3 weeks and the next day to come in and find her in the "feed and grow" room was incredibly relieving.
Charlotte clearly loves the new room. She has grown 20-40 grams every night since she moved. That is an average of one oz a day. Within the last day or so her "Spells" (where she de-sats or "Bradys") have reduced quite a bit and any spells she has are self-resolving. It appears that her little body is slowly learning what to do and how to function.
As for me and how I am doing... well, it kinda depends on when you catch me. I vacillate between being completely overwhelmed and overjoyed. I love spending time with my sweet girl. I try to "kangaroo" (skin to skin hold) with her as often as I can... usually between her 11:00 and 2:00 feedings every day. I go in with Will in the mornings and then my sister-in-law, Lisa, usually comes to pick me up around we leave to grab lunch and go home around 2. Who would have ever guessed that I could spend so much time staring into a plastic box! I marvel at how fast the time seems to pass while I am in the NICU. I could spend day on end in there and it would feel like hours. It seems that my mood tends to revolve a great deal around how well my baby is doing. The better her day is, the better I seem to feel. There were several weeks where I felt so incredibly helpless. It is true what they say about being on a rollercoaster ride. I have felt my emotions take me on quite a flux of highs to lows. I suppose I could blame it on my horomones. More likely, it stems from just being a mom now and dealing with the pain difficulty of trying to protect my sweet baby from that which I have no control. It is daunting. I just continue to pray that she will have good days so that, hopefully, I in turn will have good days too. Overall, I am simply overjoyed and overwhelmed by all of it. I cannot imagine loving anything as much as I love her. I am so happy to be a mom... to be HER mom. I am also overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. To be a mom has got to be one of the most daunting jobs in the world. The idea of actually bringing her home and taking care of her ourselves is scary, to say the least.
I am also overwhelmed though by the outpouring of support and love that we have received from our family and friends. We are SO incredibly grateful for all of their prayers, their meals, their willingness to pack us up and help us move. It is truly amazing how much people have done to help us over the past few weeks.
I truly am grateful to all of you for your calls, your desire to check in on us, the ways you have taken care of us, the clothes and baby stuff you have sent... we are overwhelmed by your love and support. I want to make sure to talk to you all personally in the next few days to make sure you know how genuinely grateful we are. We love you all and could not have made it through the past few weeks without you. Thank you for being there for us right now and for being so patient with us at this time. We cannot even begin to tell you how much we appreciate it!
PS check out Will's blog for more pictures... it takes forever for him to get them to me so I don't have anything to post right now!
Our sweet Charlotte is now weighing in at a very hefty 3 pounds and 9 oz. She has already gained over a pound since she was born! It is easy to see it on her! She has begun to fill out her little cheeks and such. Just this past week, I really started to notice how much bigger she looks. There are several developmental milestones that you can notice with her now. She loves to suck on her pacifier... she is vigorous with it now. She gets it mostly when she is being fed (still by feeding tube... hopefully she will try the bottle again later this week. She would have been 34 weeks on Thursday and that is about the time that they get their suck/swallow reflex. She tried a bottle last week but only took about 2 or 3 CC's. Hopefully she will do better at the end of this week) this tricks her into realizing the connection between sucking and getting a full belly. She gets my breastmilk every 3 hours. Right now, she gets one oz every feeding. Not a lot to you and me but quite a bit for her little belly. She has some relux issues (common for preemies since the sphincter between the esophagus and stomach is not developed yet) but has been handling her feedings rather well. My milk is supplemented with HMF (human milk fortifier) which gives her about 24 calories per feeding rather than the usual 20 that would be in my breastmilk alone. She has been off all of her IV's for the last couple of weeks (since the 9th of August) and as of this weekend, she was moved to the "big girl room" (as we call it) of the NICU. It is much nicer and MUCH more quiet than the rest of the ward. It is known as the "feed and grow" room since she really just has to eat, feed and grow from here on out. The doctors told us on Thursday of last week that she should be ready to go in 2-3 weeks. I was elated. It was the first time that anyone has given us ANY sort of timeline at all besides the standard "she should be home by her due date." It was also good timing because I was beginning to feel incredibly down. Just the night before we had been in to see her. As we left the NICU I just felt incredibly down. I was overcome by this sense of grief. I couldn't bear it. Leaving your baby in someone else's care day in and day out has become so tiresome to me. On top of that, it felt as though there was no light at the end of the tunnel. She was still on the feeding tube and far from learning to eat by bottle. Plus, she had been having more frequent "De-sat" episodes (where her pulse oxygenation would drop substantially) during her feeds. It just felt as though things had hit a very depressing plateau. So, to hear the next day that the doctors were optimistic about her going home in 2-3 weeks and the next day to come in and find her in the "feed and grow" room was incredibly relieving.
Charlotte clearly loves the new room. She has grown 20-40 grams every night since she moved. That is an average of one oz a day. Within the last day or so her "Spells" (where she de-sats or "Bradys") have reduced quite a bit and any spells she has are self-resolving. It appears that her little body is slowly learning what to do and how to function.
As for me and how I am doing... well, it kinda depends on when you catch me. I vacillate between being completely overwhelmed and overjoyed. I love spending time with my sweet girl. I try to "kangaroo" (skin to skin hold) with her as often as I can... usually between her 11:00 and 2:00 feedings every day. I go in with Will in the mornings and then my sister-in-law, Lisa, usually comes to pick me up around we leave to grab lunch and go home around 2. Who would have ever guessed that I could spend so much time staring into a plastic box! I marvel at how fast the time seems to pass while I am in the NICU. I could spend day on end in there and it would feel like hours. It seems that my mood tends to revolve a great deal around how well my baby is doing. The better her day is, the better I seem to feel. There were several weeks where I felt so incredibly helpless. It is true what they say about being on a rollercoaster ride. I have felt my emotions take me on quite a flux of highs to lows. I suppose I could blame it on my horomones. More likely, it stems from just being a mom now and dealing with the pain difficulty of trying to protect my sweet baby from that which I have no control. It is daunting. I just continue to pray that she will have good days so that, hopefully, I in turn will have good days too. Overall, I am simply overjoyed and overwhelmed by all of it. I cannot imagine loving anything as much as I love her. I am so happy to be a mom... to be HER mom. I am also overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. To be a mom has got to be one of the most daunting jobs in the world. The idea of actually bringing her home and taking care of her ourselves is scary, to say the least.
I am also overwhelmed though by the outpouring of support and love that we have received from our family and friends. We are SO incredibly grateful for all of their prayers, their meals, their willingness to pack us up and help us move. It is truly amazing how much people have done to help us over the past few weeks.
I truly am grateful to all of you for your calls, your desire to check in on us, the ways you have taken care of us, the clothes and baby stuff you have sent... we are overwhelmed by your love and support. I want to make sure to talk to you all personally in the next few days to make sure you know how genuinely grateful we are. We love you all and could not have made it through the past few weeks without you. Thank you for being there for us right now and for being so patient with us at this time. We cannot even begin to tell you how much we appreciate it!
PS check out Will's blog for more pictures... it takes forever for him to get them to me so I don't have anything to post right now!
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