Nathan's friends

Nathan has always loved stuffed animals - his puppy blanket has been a favorite since he was old enough to have favorites. Of late, though, he has been adopting any stuffed animal he can find as a new favorite. Currently residing in his crib is the puppy blanket, doggy, Buster, Pooh Bear, three teddy bears, a dinosaur bigger than him, a moose, a reindeer, a car, a ball, two blankets, a pillow, a bunny, a dolly, and whatever else he's tried to sneak in recently. Sometimes you can't see him in his crib for all the animals.

He also likes to bring his friends out to play during the day, carrying them around the house with him. It's funny to watch him try to carry five stuffed animals at once, dropping them and picking them back up again. Here he is hanging out in the rocker with a select few of his favorites.

Yea!

This morning, the last physical evidence of Emily's NICU time disappeared, with the falling off of the last scab from where they put in her IVs. Now, she really is our totally happy, healthy little baby girl, lacking any physical reminders of a not-so-fun chapter in our lives. And according to our bathroom scale, she's up to ten pounds, fully dressed. Here's to healthy babies!

Three weeks

My family has always called the first six weeks with a baby The Dark Ages, for the inability to get anything done, the lack of sleep, and the general chaos that accompanies those first weeks home. Today marks the halfway-point of this round of The Dark Ages, and it really has been quite a day already. Emily continues to do really well - she usually goes to sleep around eleven at night and sleeps until six with one meal somewhere in the middle. Her daytime sleep has good days and bad days, typically related to how much time I can give to putting her to sleep. She is still a happy baby, crying only because she's hungry, tired, or being overly-loved by her brother.

Nathan also has good days and bad days, sometimes adoring his sister and sometimes seemingly trying to punish her for taking up all of mommy's time. Today, in an attempt to take the blanket in which Emily was wrapped, Nathan accidentally rolled her off the sofa and onto the floor. She was not pleased. Thankfully, the sofa is low to the ground and she landed on some other blankets, but Nathan was immediately dumped in his crib for some serious time-out. It's hard when he just doesn't get it. Also, he was recently moved from a two-nap schedule to a one-nap schedule, and it's killing both of us. My ability to get anything done (including showering) has been halved, and he is a tired little boy. He really did need both naps. He won't go back to the two naps, though, so I'm afraid I'm stuck with a cranky toddler. Argh...

On a happier note, here are some pictures of Emily from this morning. It's time to take advantage of two sleeping babies :)

Our first walk

The weather here has turned gorgeous - highs right around 80, sunny, and clear. So, yesterday I strapped both kids (Kids! Plural! What on earth have we done?!?) into our double stroller and we went on Emily's first walk. She fell asleep within seconds of being strapped in and became a repository for Nathan's friends who had to come with us (Buster, moose, and banana). Nathan's not really into looking at the camera, thus the view of the top of his head.

Nathan, though, loved sitting beside his sister, and for much of the walk, leaned forward so that he could put his hand on her head, just to make sure she was okay. How adorable is that?

Two week update

Emily is now officially two weeks old! Chad and I were thinking the other day, and we realized that Nathan and Emily both came home when they were four days old. We stayed at the hospital so long with Nathan because it was a nice hospital, we had no other kids, and they were so helpful in figuring out nursing (Nathan didn't take to it well at first). Emily, on the other hand, stayed so long because she was sick. She needed her four days in the NICU to get well enough to come home.

So what have we been up to with the week and a half since we came home? Nathan has shared several of his canine friends to cheer up his sister when she was sad.

She had her first at-home bath and did not like it.

Nathan discovered that licking the beaters is yummy. Now I have to share them.

And Emily has been an absolute sweetheart. She sleeps at least two out of every three hours, including a newly-developed four hour stretch at night. She eats like a champ (and consequently fills diapers like a champ). She is a very happy, sweet, hungry, and sleepy baby, which is more than we could have asked for at this stage. We're thrilled to have her home, healthy and happy. And we love Nathan, too.

Feeling a little guilty...

My mom and Chad were driving out to his boss's house in Richlands (skipping the tobacco spitting competition at the Richlands' Farmer's Day) for a work picnic on Saturday when the transmission on mom's 11-year-old minivan gave out. They limped back home at 35 mph, and the van has since been grounded until it goes to get fixed. The mechanic in Raleigh confirmed that it would be a BAD idea to drive it to Raleigh in it's current state. While I feel badly that mom may not be able to go home tomorrow, I'm also secretly thrilled that my home-cooked meals and help with Nathan and Emily may continue a little longer. I will certainly miss her when she leaves.

Ouch!

My mom has been kindly staying with us since Emily came home from the hopsital, helping keep the house clean, making delicious dinners, and keeping Nathan from loving his little sister a little too much. It has been fabulous. Yesterday, mom had to go back home for the funeral of a long-time neighbor. She was packing up the car and getting ready to head up to Raleigh, and Nathan thought that he was going too. So, he grabbed his dog Buster and his cars, which were certainly necessary to go anywhere with Grandma, came into the living room, casually told me "bye-bye" and headed to the door. He was quite upset to learn that he was being left behind with his boring mom and was only pacified with a treat and some snuggle time with mom. Ouch - how quickly we are replaced...

Emily went into the doctor's on Tuesday for her post-discharge appointment, and everything looked great, except for her weight which had dropped from 7lbs 15oz at birth to 7lbs 5oz on Tuesday. The scale at the office and the scale at the hospital are even fairly aligned, so she really had lost a fair amount of weight. We went back in on Friday to check her weight, and after an hour and a half wait in the waiting room, she came in at a whopping 7lbs 14oz. Not too shabby - three ounces of weight gain a day for three days. Yes, we know how to fatten up little babies around here :)

Siblings

As Emily was incubating and grow talling and skinny, the thing I was most worried about wasn't her health or mine, the mounds of laundry and diapers something so small can create, or even trying to go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart with one more kid than fits in the regulation shopping carts. I was most worried about how Nathan would handle his new baby sister. In our family growing up, some of us handled new siblings well, enjoying them and welcoming them into the family. Others of us declared that they didn't like their new little sibling and asked when we could send them back. So, I was nervous about how Nathan would adjust to no longer being the entire center of our world.

Well, it turns out that the order of my worries was quite inaccurate. I should have been more worried about Emily and shouldn't have given Nathan a thought. He LOVES his new sister. If she's crying, he'll bring her one of his toys to make her feel better. The other morning, my mom and I were both eating breakfast, and so let Emily cry in her crib while we finished. Nathan kept going back and forth between us and Emily, very concerned that she was upset. He was crying he was so upset that she was upset. He enjoys pointing out her body parts and then his matching body parts (he hasn't seen her without the diaper yet). He wants to hold her and play with her all day. It's adorable and quite reassuring how much he loves Emily. Whew. Now I just have to conquer the laundry and Wal-Mart...

Finally home!

Emily took to nursing like a champ (it helped she hadn't eaten yet in her three days of life) and all of her respiratory problems had healed themselves, so we were able to bring her home today. Initially we had been told that she would be sent back to our local hospital to finish recovering, but she was able to heal in the NICU such that she was discharged straight home. She is now a healthy, beautiful baby girl with no problems, for which we are quite grateful.

All throughout her illness, we've very strongly seen the hand of the Lord helping to guide and bless both us, her, and those treating her. From the timely discovery of her pneumothoraxes to our finding housing in Greenville to her amazingly speedy recovery to several other events, we know that we truly have been blessed during this exceedingly difficult experience. We are so grateful to our Heavenly Father for that, and we are also so grateful for all the love and support we have felt from all of you, our family and friends. Thank you so much. We feel so lucky to have our beautiful little girl home so quickly.

Here she is today, no wires, leads, or tubes coming out of her :)

Update #2

Emily had a great day yesterday, and she had another good night last night. Her pneumothoraxes (sp?) have all healed since she arrived here in the NICU. She was taken off her ventilator yesterday, and we were able to hold her when we visited last night. When the docs round today, the nurse anticipates that they'll take out her arterial line and we'll be able to start feeding her today. We're feeling optimistic and are excited for her to continue to heal and respond so well to treatment. Thank you all for your support - we really do appreciate and feel it so strongly. We are so grateful for our supportive families and friends and the great care Emily has received so far.

Emily Update

We heard from her doctors just a little while ago, and she had a really good night. Her lungs seem to be healing, and they are working on weaning her off the respirator. We're excited to go see her shortly.

Emily

Emily arrived Wednesday morning at 8:10am, weighing in at 7lbs, 15oz and measuring 20 1/4 inches. I'm doing great, recovering quickly, and already off of the heavy pain medications.

Emily, however, is not doing so great. She has had some respiratory problems that have lead to her being intubated and on IVs. With TS/Hurricane Hanna bearing down on us, the neonatologist decided to go ahead and send her on to a bigger NICU so that if the storm causes problems and she takes a turn for the worse, she's not stuck at our little hospital. Had it not been for the storm, she probably would have stayed there and been fine, but they're being proactive and cautious given the weather.

So, last night she was airlifted out to Pitt County Hospital. She did well last night after she arrived. We're just about to head out to Greenville to be with her now. My mom has been fabulous, watching Nathan. They are also heading out of town to Raleigh now so as to avoid the less-than-perfect weather we'll be enjoying over the next day or two. We'll post updates as we get more news.

Here are some pics - the first is Emily immediately after her birth. The next is Emily and me her first night. The last is the one time I've been able to hold her so far. We feel strongly like she's going to be okay, it's just getting there that's the hard part. Please keep us and Emily in your prayers over these next few days.

New Baby (almost) arrives!

Despite much worrying and no preparations after our checkup last week, New Baby has decided to stay put until her scheduled arrival tomorrow morning. Part of me is relieved - an emergency C-section would have been pretty crazy and involved much more coordination of Nathan, a different doctor, and lots of stress. Part of me is not relieved - being terminally pregnant (as my OB dad calls it) is NOT fun. I have no idea how I worked so long with Nathan. I had my first contractions while still at work. I was certifiably loony or in denial or both. This pregnancy seems to have been much more uncomfortable in these last stages. Thankfully, though, she WILL be coming tomorrow morning, so this pregnancy WILL end. We'll post names, pictures, etc later when it's all said and done. Keep your fingers crossed for us that all will go well. Next time you hear from us, we'll have a daughter!