Hope is 1 Month Old Today!

It is hard to believe that Hope has been a part of our family for one month. We can't imagine our family without her. She has definitely blessed us in so many ways. Hope has now been home with us for 12 days. In those 12 days she has continued to thrive. She is eating well and is up to 50 cc's per feeding. She is also developing a routine as far as sleep is concerned. She goes to bed at around 11:00pm each night and wakes up sometime around 3:00am to eat and then again around 7:00am. She is also awake more throughout the day. I think she enjoys watching her sister and brother as they play and act crazy. Hope goes to the doctor again tomorrow. Hopefully, we will have another good report! Thank you for continuing to think about our family. We really appreciate it!

6th Day at Home

Hope had her doctor's appointment today. She is doing wonderful. Her weight is just under 6lbs 1oz. She has gained over 8oz since she has been home. She continues to gain strength every day. Hope is scheduled for another appointment next week. Even though she is doing great, the doctor continues to warn us to be very careful and cautious. He warns that germs are all around. If a baby is under two months and gets sick, the baby has to be admitted to the hospital because they are too young for medicine.

We often wonder if we are being too cautious. Then we remember how hard it was for our family and little girl to be at the hospital. We KNOW that we do not want to be back in the hospital.

Today Brent made a visit back to the NIM/NICU unit. We have some friends that are in the NIM unit. Their son, Cameron, took Hope's spot in the NIM when she left (the actual spot). We realize what a toll the hospital can take on you and a what friendly visit can do for your spirit. We also know another couple that is in the NICU. He has been e-mailing us with questions. It does feel good to be able to help and support these two families.

Hope you enjoy the pictures. We will update soon.

Hope's 3rd Day at Home

What a wonderful Saturday for us! This is the first Saturday in 6 weeks that we didn't have to spend time at the hospital. What a joy it is to just be home spending time together - doing puzzles, playing games, reading books and cuddling Hope. We definitely couldn't ask for anything more. Hope continues to do great here at home. She is eating well, napping well and making her big brother and big sister (and mom and dad too!) fall even more in love with her. On Tuesday Hope has her first appointment with our pediatrician. It will be neat to see if she has continued to gain weight and to get Dr. Henderson's impression of her.

2nd Day at Home

The second day was so great that we forgot to update the blog. How weird not to go to the hospital, for Jen to be able to go to Ryann's Valentine Party, to spend more than 1 hour as a family, and to be able to watch the Olympics as a family. These things we took for granted just 2 months ago ... now we live for them. Who could have asked for a better birthday gift.

Hope had a wonderful day! She ate and slept like she has been doing it since day 1. The kids are very proud of her and are enjoying every minute with her. They are a tremendous help when it comes to advice and taking care of her. Hope feeds every 3 hours so this schedule is a little hard. Brent has been doing the 1:00 & 4:00 am feedings since he had this time off. Jen is doing the 7:00 so Brent can sleep in. Starting Monday Jen will be the lady of the night.

This is a picture from when we left the hospital. The blanket is the same one that Brent went home in when he was born.

Hope's 21st Day / 1st Day at Home

Hope has ended her stay at the hospital!!! She is now home and we have a complete family. What a great day for us. Hope came home on her 21st day -- just liker her mom. We all are glad to have Hope home. Camden has brought out a lot of things to show his little sister. Ryann is being a great sister also. Unfortunately, both kids are under the weather so they can not get very close to Hope. We have created a germ free room that the kids are not allowed in and this is the place that Hope sleeps.

We will continue to do a daily blog through the weekend. After the weekend, we will try to update weekly.

We want to thank everyone for their great support! Through this difficult time, friends and family have made this journey so much easier. We still wonder how we could have ever done this without the support.

Hope's 20th Day

It was another good day for Hope! She had the chance to hang out with her dad all day due to the fact that mom stayed home with Ryann, who was not feeling well. Hope and her dad had a lot of fun spending such quality time together. She now weighs 5 pounds and 8 ounces, and continues to improve her eating. Each day she seems to have longer periods of being awake. Tonight she was moved to room 3 in NIM due to the number of babies as well as nursing staff.

Hope's 19th Day

It has been another great day for Hope. She seems to be getting the hang of eating. She did a nice job all day today with her feedings. She nursed really well at one feeding, and took the remainder of her feedings today from a bottle. She continues to work on her pacing. She seems to either eat too quickly or eat at an extremely slow rate. She also has a tendency to be really worn out at some of her middle of the night feedings. This is when the decision is made for her to be tube fed. We are hoping that we can get through the night tonight without the need for any tube feedings!

Hope's 18th Day

Today was the day of the big meeting with the doctor. They were very pleased with her progress. They said everything that you would want to see her doing or improving on is happening. The doctor does not have a time frame when she will be going home. As always, they tell us when Hope is ready she will go. Each child is different and only she can tell.

The doctor did talk about when we get home. He scared us with the talk of germs. Hope did not receive any of the antibodies from Jen to fight off infections and other germs. This happens late in the pregnancy. He told us that the ONLY person that Hope needs to survive at this time is her mom. We need to weigh the benefits verses the negatives for any other person that comes sees or has contact with her when she is at home. The doctor said we probably would feel terrible if Hope got sick and had to come back to NICU. This was an eye-opener to both of us.

Hope's 17th Day

Another quality day for Hope. She continues to take bottles. She ate from the bottle the entire day (10:00 - 7:00) for us. The night time is when she struggles. With a preemie, you need to feed them every three hours. This does need to take place during the night also. (NO sleep for us when she comes home). I hope you enjoy the pictures and a few were added to the previous days also.

Hope's 16th Day

Hope continued to work on her eating today. She was able to practice nursing once during the day and was also able to take a bottle at three different times. She is definitely getting better at eating, but it does continue to really tire Hope out. It takes her quite a while to get the 44cc's of her bottle down. At this time, the doctors are relying on Hope to provide cues as to her eating. If it is time for her to eat and she seems too tired or uninterested, the feeding will be given to her through a feeding tube.

Hope's 15th Day

It was an incredible day for Hope! It started with her doctor deciding to remove her permanent feeding tube. He also decided that she no longer needed to have the oxygen level in her blood monitored. As a result, she is now rid of one tube and one wire. She is left with only two more wires (the ones that monitor her heart rate and her respiration rate) that she will keep until she comes home. It was also decided that she no longer needs to have her blood sugar level tested. This will save her a poke in her heel every 12 hours.

Hope is now getting 44cc's of milk once every 3 hours. She was able to take two of these feedings (about 40cc's) through a bottle today. This is a huge step for Hope. The remainder of the feedings were given to her through a gavage feeding tube (a larger tube inserted into her stomach for a time period just long enough for gravity to take the 44cc's from a syringe into her stomach). Hope also continues to gain weight. She is now up to 5 pounds and 4 ounces. It is so wonderful to see these improvements!

Tonight Ryann and Brent went to the Daddy-Daughter Dance. They went out to eat together, went to the dance and had a lot of fun, and ended their evening at the hospital visiting Hope so that she could also be included in this Daddy-Daugther Night.

Hope's 14th Day

We started the morning with the usual call to the NIM. This morning we were told that Hope would only be allowed to eat twice a day from the bottle or from Jen. This was a disappointment for both of us. The doctors want to get Hope to the full feedings -- 44 ml in 30 minutes. They feel this is more important than her eating on her own.

Well Hope ate 7 ml on her first feeding (which is her best) after breast feeding. Then she set a new record of 10 ml when dad fed her at 7:00 pm. So what seemed like a setback in the morning, just once again reassured us that the doctors are so awesome at Butterworth.

Hope continues to gain weight. Her awake periods seem to get a little longer each day. She seems like a very happy and content baby. Tonight's nurse told me she was gorgeous (which I had to agree) and then said her laid back personality even made her cuter!

Hope's 13th Day

Today, Hope gained some more weight. She is up to 5lb 3oz. She is getting so big. It is hard for us to realize the weight gain but others notice that have not seen her everyday. Her feedings continue to improve. She is getting her 44ml over 1.5 hours now. It seems so long ago when she was getting 1ml per hour. Everyone seems to be very pleased with her progress.

We have a conference with the doctor on Monday. The doctor meets with all parents after they have been in for 2 weeks. We don't know what they will tell us.

We are still overwhelmed with the continued support. We are closing in on one month on Friday. The last month has been a blur with many ups and downs. We often look at others in the NICU and wonder how they survive without the support that we have had! You look at the single moms, the low income families, and the people that live out of town and you realize how lucky you are.