March 31st

This was the first time that Adin was able to fall asleep on my legs - which is my favorite baby admiring position! His legs are in the frog position which is oh-so-adorable. 

We like to put Adin in the lounger on his sides so his head stays in a nice shape. He still loves his burpee's. It's something for him to hang on to. 

We had registered for a simple swing that was nicely priced, had good reviews, and was able to be folded up and traveled with. Clearly, the above is not that swing. The original swing only went back and forth and Adin much prefers going side to side. He was spoiled by having his first every successful swing time at Matt and Kara's in their swing that is the newer version of this one. So, we returned the swing we had and put the money towards this beast! We got it at a local consignment shop for a VERY good deal and it is a miracle worker!

Another tummy time video of Adin. 

He confused one of the rings on his play mat with something edible. 

Stacey got us the monthly stickers (which I never knew were stickers until recently). We missed the 1-month shot so I had to make up for it. I put the sticker on his preemie onesie which he was still wearing at the 1-month mark and put it next to the 2 comparison stuffed animals that I will be using. The elephant is from Adin's Mimi, the bear is from his Juju. 

Notice the initials that we had to put on his clothing that we brought for him while he was in the NICU. Also, the onesie was part of a clothing set that Stacey and Jim not only bought for us, but then took home, washed, and returned the next day. If that's not thoughtful I don't know what is!

See the miracle above?! It's perfect for those evening naps! Adin likes to stay awake (or try to) from 1 PM to 9 PM...and from 4:30 on he is a beast. So a quick 40 minute nap and he's good to go!

And he's 2 MONTHS!!!! Almost able to sit on his own...

but mostly slides down :)

and he was a bit done with pictures :)

March 28th

This is how we sometimes put Adin to bed. This is a SwaddleMe. We like it but it's difficult to put on. First you have to drop his legs in which generally takes two people. Then you have to catch Adin when his arms are down and then trap them in. That kind of makes him mad...so we get an angry baby for a bit and then he settles down because he's snug as a bug in a rug. 

Adin and the whale. If you look back at a post from February where he is on the whale you can see some size difference. He didn't scoot over it this time like he did back then. He was able to tolerate laying on it much better. However we have to time any belly time by his last feeding. If we do it too soon the play mat ends up wearing spit up. 

He loves his whale :)

I'm trying to see if I can trade the Boppy Newborn Lounger in for the plain ol' boppy. But, he's not ready. He slides down and doesn't attempt to really sit up. Plus I have to tuck a blanket under his head, otherwise it looks awkward. I didn't realize it, but he looks really long in this picture. 

March 27th

Here's a pretty good picture of a smile. He mostly smiles in his sleep or after finished a bottle when he's full and satisfied. But every once in a while he will smile while awake or while looking at one of us. He enjoys doing airplane with Jesse so I'm thinking that'll be the first giggle. 

Another video of tummy time where he's practicing the skill of turning over. He still hasn't done it, but he will someday :)

Adin and I - Adin sporting a onesie from his Auntie and Uncle 

He sleeps a lot... but that should start to decrease slowly. 

Jake loving on Adin

That is Jake's snout 

Side profile

Full on, he has mommy's picture eyes - wide and shocked

My milk in the fridge. I need to find a better way to organize it because it's about 90% milk and 10% food. I literally find myself grocery shopping and avoiding the frozen food aisles because we have nowhere to put in. Which you would think would translate to better/fresher cooking but nope. 

Happy 100th Post

Here is a recap of the last year

February: 1st IUI, healing circle
March: 2nd IUI 3 mature follicles
April: month off due to ovarian cysts, started last course for post-graduate work
May: 3rd IUI, 5 mature follicles
June: Found out 3rd IUI resulted in a bio-chemical pregnancy, IVF consult
July: Finished post-graduate work, Found out I was pregnant, went to Europe
August: Heard the heartbeat, Matt and Kara's wedding, announced pregnancy to family and friends...and work.
September: Ultrasounds!
October: Found out it's a boy!
November: can't think of anything special that happened here...
December: Spent Christmas Eve with Chris, Rachel, Matt, Kara, and Jesse's family
January: Kara's shower, my shower, and the surprise arrival of Adin!
February: NICU ended and Adin came home! My mom came to visit
March: Spending the month with our bundle nugget watching him grow and recovering

This last year has been CRAZY!!! But look what came out of it!

March 23, 2012

March 19th

So in the last week (I apologize for not posting) I have been beyond exhausted! I don't typically use the internet as a forum for complaining as I don't feel that others need to hear me whine. However, now that things are on an upswing I'll spend some time filling you all in.

Adin has a tough time pooping and passing gas. Now I know that that is not shocking for A) a baby his age and B) a preemie to boot. However his discomfort was extreme enough that Kara felt bad for him and suggested I call his pediatrician. I had every intention to on Monday, but he seemed to do OK (until about 4 PM when Jesse was home). Then he was "up" most of the night squirming and squeaking in discomfort. Tuesday was similar. Wednesday was similar. Add in some projectile vomiting and you have a good idea how my week went. Wednesday night he began his squeaking and squirming at about 11:15, was not hungry until about 2:00 and then did not go back to sleep until 3:30 or so. Guess what I was doing that whole time? I was figuratively on the edge of the bed listening/checking for signs of hunger or spit up. He also was doing some gagging and choking - the choking is the most scary and I am thankful for my infant CPR training.

I hit my mommy breaking point on Thursday. I was on the verge of tears for 2 reasons 1) I wasn't able to do anything to help my little man and 2) I was EXHAUSTED!!!! I cannot nap during the day because I'm not a napper and because I wanted to be awake and alert to hear if he was gagging and clean up any spit up so he didn't choke on it. So, I called the pediatrician. My voice was cracking holding back my tears when I talked to the receptionist and again when I talked to the nurse. By the time the nurse called back a second time after talking with his Nurse Practitioner (who had seen him for his 1 month and speculated that he had reflux based on the amount of spitting up he did and me mentioning choking and gagging behavior) I was feeling a light at the end of the tunnel so I kept my emotions in check. They prescribed Zantac and were able to call it in since the Nurse Practitioner had noted it previously.

That night was amazing! He slept squeak free until 2:00!!! Then was able to fall back asleep with minimal squeaking until 6:00. He had another big choke incident Friday night at 3:30 AM and then Saturday night ater at 10:00, fell asleep at midnight (we had a very busy day with lots of traveling and the evening spent in the carrier nice and snuggled against me so he needed some awake time), stirred around 1:15, then fell back asleep. When he was ready to be fed I nudged Jesse (he takes the middle of the night feeding on the weekends while I pump). Jesse got up and I said "You won't believe what time it is" - thinking it was 2:30. He looked at the clock and was quite shocked. I grabbed my phone and was more than shocked that it was 5:30!!!!! Last night he ate at 10:00 and slept until 3:30 - I'll take it!!! His spitting up is much less. He is still somewhat uncomfortable with passing gas/poop but that has improved minimally.

That is my version of whining - see, I waited until there was a solution/better outcome.

March 13th - Traveling Part Dos

So yesterday we did feedings at 6, 9, 12, 3, 6, and 9 with 3.5 ounces at all feedings except the 9 PM feeding had 4.5 ounces. He stayed awake 6-8 AM, 12-2, and 6-8:30 PM. He slept until about 1:00 AM and then squeaked from 1-3. Every time I would check (you know, throw my hand in the bassinet trying to find his mouth to see if he would suck) he showed no interest. At some point I plucked him out and laid him on his side facing me with my arms around him and that settled him until just after 3 when he finally showed signs that he was hungry. He ate, burped, snuggled, and by 4:00 we were both back to sleep. It took him a bit to settle and then he finally went to sleep. At about 6:00 Jesse came in to get dressed for work and Adin started squeaking again. In my half awake exhausted stupor I got out of bed, turned off the bedroom light (the light in the closet was on) and got back in bed. I think I mumbled something like "I don't want him to wake up yet" - however within minutes Adin was wide awake. 

We also had the very last visit from Karen, our visiting nurse. Adin weighed in at a whopping 7 lbs 1 oz. My goodness!!! 

Tomorrow is his actual due date, so it's very interesting to look at him now and picture him inside of my belly. There's no way he would have fit in my belly. I commented to Karen that I would have had a 7 lb baby - and she commented back that he probably would have been bigger given that in the womb he wouldn't be burning as many calories. 

To celebrate his "due date" tomorrow we will be doing his hand and foot prints. I thought that was fitting given that that's a date we don't want to forget and he was in NICU for almost the first 2 weeks so we missed the newborn prints. 

First Weekend Traveling

On Friday we packed up the car, dog and all, and headed down to New York. Jesse's last roommate from college, Brandon, got married on Saturday in New Jersey. I was not ready to leave my child at home and drive HOURS away and stay overnight, so thankfully Bryce decided to come 2 weeks early so we were able to stay with Matt and Kara in New York and be just about an hour and a half from Adin. 

We hit some traffic on the way down. I had to hop in the back seat and shove a bottle in Adin's face. I was planning to just give him an ounce to bring him through the last hour of the trip but the little man did not agree with my plan, so he took a whole bottle. While I was in the backseat I decided it would be good to pump. So I plugged my Ameda pump into our adapter and got to work. I was nervous that the adapter would not be able to handle it, but with the exception of some decrease in suction it worked well! We made a stop at Starbucks and did a driver switch...and I got to drive my least favorite narrow windy road in the dark. Our arrival time was about 6:30. Kara and I immediately switched babies and got some snuggles in. We got to see the completed nursery, and ate a yummy dinner. Adin surprised me by being hungry very early. Again, I thought a snack might make sense so I could keep him on schedule. Again, he had a different agenda. I could not tell you how many ounces he ate! But, maybe he's growing. 

Saturday Kara and I took the boys out shopping and I was able to score a few necessities for real cheap as well as exchange a duplicate book that I had purchased for one that I still needed (babies R us has been having a buy one get one 50% off on Dr. Suess books so I've been trying to complete the collection of little ones). Then I started getting ready for the wedding (which I had an inkling would be fancy and I'm not in fancy shape). On the car ride to the wedding I decided it would be a good idea to pump in the car again - however this time it didn't work. The power light flickered then went out on the pump. I spent the last 40 minutes of the ride in a sweat looking up places to purchase a new pump on my phone because the ladies couldn't go the evening and night without being released. When we got to the wedding site we booked it (not really because I was wearing heels for the first time in MONTHS) to our friends room and I frantically plugged my pump in. IT WORKED! PHEW!!! Huge financial expenditure avoided! 

The wedding was beautiful. The timing of events was a bit spaced out - however in Brandon and Christine's defense it was actually perfect, I'm just not used to being up and active that late and that's why I thought it was too spaced out. They had an open bar, however I only had a few sips of things so I could still pump and use my milk. We left after the cake/bouquet/garter shenanigans and headed home. I, of course, was the DD for the evening and got us home by midnight. 

We found out that Adin had had some painful gas/pooping the evening before and was up quite a bit in the night squeaking in discomfort. I started to get worried. We packed up and left in a timely manner so we could get home shortly after noon. Adin was able to go over 5 hours between feedings so all the straining from passing gas or pooping must have tuckered him out! He was quite hungry the rest of the day as well, so now I'm researching changing his feeding schedule and adjusting the amount that he's getting fed. We were at just under 4 ounces (110 cc's) every 4 hours, with the very occasional 4.5 hour stretch at night. Today I am going to try 100 cc's every 3 hours and see if he can chug down a bit more before bed and sleep for a chunk of time. 

Below is the first installment of pictures from this weekend. There were so many (thank you Kara for emailing them to me!!!) that I am going to break it up into two groups. That also guarantees that I blog tomorrow :)