Home Sweet Home

We got to bring William home Monday night!

On Sunday they removed the IV to see how he handled his only source of nutrition being from the bottle. He is only a s0-so eater, due to his being early and not having the brain development, and from the jaundice. He has lost weight since then, but it is about 8% today, so not quite the 10% that would require him to be readmitted.

They were hesitant to let him come home, but in the end we think it was miscommunication between the pediatrician and the NICU nurses. The nurse who discharged us said that she felt comfortable sending us home as long as he continued to eat the minimum amount and was seen every day for check ups. So now we just pray that his weight loss plateaus and he learns better how to eat so we can avoid the dreaded re-admission to the hospital.

The kids were thrilled to get to go back and see baby William and do the "one finger touch". Check out the cute shirts that Daddy got for them, Big Sister and Middle Brother.

Oh, how good this home cooked food tasted! And to be back home as a family felt unbelievably joyful! Grace and Nana made a birthday cake for William (the candle was a zero :) ).

Welcome William!

First, some pics, then the story.

Where in the world does that dark, full head of hair come from?!?

Getting to hold William for the first time since he was born, about 24 hours later. What a sweet moment!

Thank you all so much for your prayers!! Yes, we had a little boy yesterday, April 1st. He was 6 lb 2 oz and we decided to call him William Robert (Robert was my beloved grandfather's name, so now each of our boys have a middle name of one of our grandfathers). He was born at the end of a very crazy day a little after 4pm.

My ultrasound on Wednesday afternoon showed that the baby was at the 11th percentile for weight (they guessed 5 lb, 14oz). If he had been at the 10th percentile, they would have put me on complete bed rest and delivered at 38 weeks. But with the extra percentage point, they were willing to put me on modified best rest and twice weekly Non-Stress Tests. I wasn't thrilled, but I wasn't worried either. I just figured we had a little baby since everything else so far looked so good.

I started out with a Non-Stress Test at the hospital in the morning. While I was sitting there I was having a lot of contractions, and the tech was concerned. Secretly, I was hoping she wouldn't notice the contractions because I had no intention of delivering a baby that day! :) She took the results over to our OB's office and they wanted to send me down to triage at the Family Birth Place for more monitoring to see if the contractions would slow down. After several hours, they were still very regular so they decided to move up the c-section to that day. It was the longest we have had to wait in the hospital, (about 5 hours in triage) but God was so good to give us his patience and peace- and time to figure out a name :).

The surgery went well, but William came out with a lot of fluid in his lungs and unable to get enough oxygen on his own, apparently common for a preemie baby (the pediatrician said today that there is a remarkable difference between a 37 week baby and a 38 week baby). He has been in the NICU since delivery, and I am hoping and praying that they will discharge him tomorrow or the next day or so that we can finally hold and feed the little peanut! (They don't want any stimulation- holding, touching- to raise his heart rate and breathing because he is already working so hard.)

His vitals are all good now and today he is breathing on his own without the oxygen tent, but he still has a high respiratory rate which they will have to wait for him to get under control. We have been told that babies at this age have not mastered the tasks of swallowing, breathing and eating, so he has to be on an IV for now.

We covet all prayers. The older kids are doing well with all the sudden changes. We look forward to being able to bring everyone home, and start our new, "normal" life! :)

Full term

It is nice to hit that milestone of "full term", which always seemed a little odd to me at 37 weeks and not 40, but I guess the point is that if the baby came today, their lungs would be ready and hopefully Mommy and Daddy would be ready. :) But that's a post for another day!

I am still measuring small, about three weeks behind, which may account for all of the "you are so tiny" comments. I guess I feel smaller than with Matthew, but honestly, who feels small in their last month of pregnancy?!? At this point the doctors want to check on things and we have had to wait a week for an ultrasound to check on the baby and all that sustains him/her. They will combine that info with the fact that I don't have small babies (hello, Matthew at 9 lb. 7 oz. !), and they may decide to move the c-section date up earlier. We shall see...
Meanwhile we have been keeping ourselves busy with Spring time activities, like a picnic at the park and some good ol' rock throwing into the river.

Anyone remember Grace at this age would not even dream of going down the slide?? And check out that hair. I promptly gave him a hair cut last week after this photo.

Dying Easter eggs... and remembering why a almost-two-year-old should probably not be handling real eggs.

Grace, the artist in the family.

Cathryn at 33 Weeks

We have a date now of April 12th... only 5 1/2 weeks before Baby comes!

Snowy week

We are supposed to get another couple of inches of snow tonight and it reminded me that I wanted to blog about our BIG snow last week. I actually had no idea it was coming until someone mentioned it at church and I said "yeah, yeah... that's what they are always threatening and it never happens." Turns out the weather man was right this time!

We are those weird people who actually enjoy the snow and being out in it. Poor Erik was in Pittsburgh for a few days so he missed the fun. After a couple of days Mommy and kids were ready to get out of the house, but my car couldn't clear the driveway. Probably not the smartest thing to shovel a driveway full of foot-and-a-half snow at 31 weeks pregnant, but lets just say I was highly motivated by the idea of "kids eat free" at our Chick-fil-a on Tuesday nights! You can see how deep the snow was: the part to the left of Matthew was our walkway to our front door that we didn't shovel yet. After a few swipes with the shovel, Grace announced, "I think this must be very hard work" and quit. :)

Dixie was not so keen of having to wade through snow to go outside. And I was not about to shovel the back patio for the dog.

That weekend after Erik got home he and Grace headed out to make a snow fort before the snow melted. With two brothers growing up, this is a specialty of his. And of course the hard work was rewarded with chocolate chip cookies!

My Valentines

Don't you wish you had such fun valentines in your life? :)

What I learned today

It is perfectly acceptable to be a boy playing cars and still wear a crown (at his request). At least we have that manly Dora band aid on to prove how tough we really are!

The dread of getting back into exercising after a 6 week hiatus is worse than actually doing it.

Crayola has awesome free coloring pages and activities.

If you plan carefully, is it fully possible for a mommy to take a bath and a nap during the kids' nap times.

A day at home is a always a lovely thing.

A Very Belated Merry Christmas

So I was joking with a friend that it would probably be February before I got my Christmas pictures up on the blog. That was supposed to be a joke, and yet here I am sneaking them in under the wire. It is not entirely my fault! Really. We have been having some issues with the internet after moving the computer to a wireless connection. And it seems that it hated Blogger the most. And I have better things to do than battle with this contraption, so therefore that is why it took a month to get these pictures up. Enjoy, especially those of you who kindly harassed me for them :).

"Mine" A new favorite word that can mean both Matthew and the truest sense of that evil word, mine.

Our Christmas snow storm and the fabulous Daddy who will go out and play for hours.

This is the safest way that Matthew decided he should touch snow: through the glass or on a plate. He was not keen of having any more to do with it up close and personal.

Grace and "Snowy" that she and Daddy made. Quite creative, I thought (the decorations, not the name).

If only he always kept the crayons on the paper, this would be such a sweet activity... but alas, I have found his artistic evidence on my wall, closet door, the inside of the play kitchen...

On Christmas Eve we sang carols in a room lit only by candles, and read a Christmas book while eating cookies. Is it not clear why this is every kid's favorite holiday? This includes big kids.

One who looks like she is going on twelve. And another who is in the "cheesey smile" phase.

What a way to ring in the New Year

You know, in a way it is encouraging to know that things can only get better in the New Year. We started out the New Year with two sick parents and one sick kid, and one kid who I kind of wished was sick so that he would be zonked out like the rest of us. Turns out Grace had bronchitis, which she shared with me, and at the same time Erik got the flu which turned into a two week ordeal with some breathing complications. I knew he was knocked off his feet when the man who has never taken a sick day from work in his life took five. We were bad enough off that we had to call reinforcements to fly in and help us since the sick adults were greatly outnumbered.

In the meantime, our Christmas decorations stayed up later than they ever had, laundry grew roots on the floor, and the dust was thick enough to be able to be seen from across the room. And our rather nice microwave decided to die, to the tune of $400 in parts alone. Um, instead we'll get a new one for less than that, thank you. I can't tell you how good it has been for all of us to be back to normal this week, getting things done and playing catch up on house work (yes, it was enjoyable to catch up on housework!).

So if you haven't seen us in a while it isn't because we don't like you. :) We are just now returning to the land of the living!

Sandy Thanksgiving

We were very blessed to get to spend Thanksgiving week with Erik's family at the beach. Over the course of the week, Grace turned into a fish and even floated in the ocean (come on, big news for the cautious child) and Matthew walked on the sand (I think all babies have a natural aversion to the feeling of sand on their feet). For those of you who saw her at the pool this past summer, you know what a miracle this picture is! There isn't even anyone near her or holding her!

Just chilin'.

The boy touches sand! Ta Da!

What a pair of goof balls!

This was Matthew's main source of nutrition, as he refused to eat (or sleep) on vacation: Teddy Grahams, raisins, and pretzels. I'm serious.

Fun in the pool with Uncle Stefan.

Matthew splashed as much as he does in the bathtub, only here we didn't mind so much because we were already wet!

Catch up

Before there is a public tar and feathering because I haven't blogged recently, I thought I better get this out there, fast. I really don't know where the last month went. It certainly felt busier than normal, but I can't tell you what we really did. Of course, there are the usual suspects. You know you are behind on your ironing when your iron automatically shuts off and you are only half way through the pile! There was also the matter of this child, who is not normally so contained:

And this one, who normally is this uncontained:I'll start at the most recent stuff and work backwards. I hope the neighbors don't mind that I borrowed their maple for this picture. Ours has already lost all of its leaves. Look at that sunset behind them! I can't say that I am the biggest fan of Halloween in general, but if you avoid the scary stuff, the kids sure do have fun. Matthew was thrilled just to be able to carry a lollipop, and had no idea it was better to eat than to hold. Seriously, we do not need that kid on sugar. Grace got more use out of that recital costume from last spring. I thought it made perfectly good sense to use what we had! :)

One of the other highlights of the month was trick-or-treating at Daddy's office. You'll notice we had a costume change. Grace wanted to be Snow White that day. Fine. At least she already had the ensemble from her dress up stuff. Matthew was still the ferocious lion who won't roar in public.Grace positively adores going to Daddy's office. Which is funny, because I think we've only done it twice... maybe that's part of the appeal. Notice the high heels she wore. Who makes this stuff for toddlers and thinks its a good idea? I'm surprised we got out of there without a twisted ankle. And how cute is Matthew's tail wagging behind him? Those kids made quite the cute pair going around.

Seriously, ladies, lets all give our man a giant high five for working in a little cube all day. At least Erik "graduated" to one with a view. I don't know how I could go all day without a window. Or any privacy (oh, wait, that part does apply to me- I can't remember the last time I went to the bathroom by myself).

Matthew's obsession with all things motorized continues. Here he picks out a car to buy that is way cooler than his mommy's minivan. Which- side note- he just started calling me "Mom-ee" from "Mama". I love it.

Matthew is working on being an engineer, as he sorts and organizes everything into a nice line.

I also subjected my kids to a hands-on history lesson. Exact replicas of Columbus' Nina and Pinta were in Cincinnati for a week, and being a history buff I wanted to go. I used the kids educational experience as my excuse. :) Grace and I checked out a book at the library about Columbus, and let me tell you, there should not be a national holiday honoring that guy. He was not a nice man! And to be stuck on a ship the size of my living room for months at a time, well, lets just say I would be the first to volunteer to stay on the island and get to know the locals!

We visited a farm just down the road and did the corn maze ("Mommy, I don't think we'll ever get out!" panicked Grace half way through) and the hay ride. I had been told by someone that you get to feed the cows in the field. I didn't understand what that meant until these snotty noses came poking at us. Matthew thought it was great until Mommy fed the cow. Then he cried, buried his head in my shoulder and proceeded to fall asleep. That must be his defense mechanism.

Grandma was sweet and came for a visit over Grace's birthday and to watch the kids while we did some weekend training at church.And somehow this happened along the way. My baby turned four. FOUR. Please tell me life has a pause button and you've found it!

I learned a little something about my daughter the other day while we filled out a letter to include in our Operation Christmas Child box. I'll share the facts with you. Her favorite colors are orange, purple and pink, the latter two of which have been added in the last year. Her favorite drink is a smoothie, which we had quite a lot of this summer. Her favorite food are pancakes, with real maple syrup (don't try to fool that girl with the fake stuff- she's read the book about sugaring at the library and only wants the real thing!). She has one brother, but she thinks we should have 30 kids, to which I suggested a surrogate and more parents to help out around here.

Something I didn't need to learn from helping her with the letter was that she has become such a grown up little girl. She is full of caring for others, finds something to compliment us on daily, I am amazed at how maternal she is with Matthew, always trying to help him, encouraging him, willing to read to him when he has the pre-dinner whines, and entertain him when he has the everyday whines. Of course there are those moments they fight like cats and dogs, but I love seeing how they are becoming friends. Now if only we could get Matthew to call Grace something else besides "SSSSSSSSSS!!!!!"....