2 weeks

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

Today I am so incredibly grateful that God chose to give Eli life. His first week of life was so incredibly difficult for me to handle, but God got us through it somehow. Looking back now, I truly have no idea where the strength came from. But, it is pure bliss here on the other side. I see the miracle that is our little boy! He is a living reminder that every breathe is given to us by God. I love to snuggle up close to him and feel his chest rise with every breath and to listen to him inhale life giving air!

Today I am thankful for the miracle that is life!

Happy 10 Months Malachi!

Malachi is 10 months old today and boy is he growing up!

The shirt he is wearing is the perfect shirt for this boy:

Some of the milestones Malachi has hit this month include:

Getting his 4th tooth

Plays Peekaboo: He hides his head behind something then pops it back out or if there is no place for him to hide, he puts his head down and then pops it back up!

Signs "All Done" when he is ready to be done eating

Dances when you say "Dance"

His two biggest milestones are:

Becoming a big brother. Even though he didn't really have to do anything for this one, it is still a big milestone in his life and hopefully they will be best of buddies!

Learning How to Walk: For the last month he has been taking steps, but over the last week he has really taken off with the walking and now can walk all the way across the room!

I can't believe how much he continues to change and grow. He is starting to want his independence and wants to feed himself (completely on table food now, yay for no more purees!) and for the most part likes to wonder around and play for himself. He is also starting to show signs of a temper when he does not get his way. We still feel so blessed to have this little character in our life :)

V-Day

Well, there are no fancy restaurants or big date plans for us today. There are no extravagant flowers or big jewelry purchases for us today. But there certainly is a whole lotta love!!!

Happy Valentine's Day from Mr. Handsome Himself!!!

I sure do feel like one lucky and loved lady today!!!

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

We are so thrilled that Elias is home! It is a real answer to prayers that he is now healthy and on his way to catching up with big brother :)

We are still working on figuring things out and getting in to a routine. I have to remind myself that routines take time and this is a huge family adjustment for all of us. Peter has the next 3 weeks off work so hopefully we can settle in for the most part by then. Elias has been very easy to take care of so far. He wakes up about every 2 1/2 hours to eat and then goes back to sleep until the next feeding time. Things just feel a whole lot smoother than they did when we came home with Malachi, but maybe it is because we are now second time parents and not amateur first timers :)

I think our primary concern right now is helping Malachi adjust. He is totally out of his routine and has to make a huge adjustment now that there is another baby in the house, but it is no different than any child when they become the big brother or sister. He just needs a little extra TLC. Malachi doesn't really notice Eli. Although when Eli started to cry, it scared Malachi and he started to cry too - it was kind of cute and funny.

The NICU totally freaked me out right before we left. Eli is having some issues with choking while he eats. The nurses in the NICU were concerned about it, but the doctor said we are experienced parents so he knows we can handle it. Eli is still learning how to breathe in some ways so when you combine the eating and the breathing he sometimes chokes. While we were there the nurse showed us some ways to feed him which help open the airway and ways to hold him after he chokes to open up the airway. They also discussed how someone with a common cold could give germs to Eli and how it could go into RSV (which they said is going around really bad right now) and pneumonia for him and then he would have to go back the NICU and it could be really bad for him. Needless to say, I was thoroughly freaked out at the idea of bringing home a fragile baby by the time we left.

Fortunately things are going really well. We aren't having visitors to hopefully keep him from getting sick and he is getting better about not choking when he eats. Otherwise, things seem to be going smoothly. Here's some picture overload of our first 2 days at home:

All ready to leave the NICU!

First moments at home:

Snuggles with big brother

Attempting to get a picture of big and little brother (neither were cooperating)

We think he looks like "Elf on the Shelf"

First bath:

About as good as it can get right now!

Day 5 - Wednesday the 9th:

It was amazing to get to walk into the left wing of the NICU and not the right wing of the NICU. We were shown to where our little boy was and there he was FINALLY the way we have been dying to see him. No C-Pap, no IV, no feeding tube - just monitoring wires. He was awake so I was talking to him and the nurse said "you can go ahead and pick him up". I was kind of surprised that we didn't have to get any permission to move him but so eager to hold him on my own!

He was awake for awhile before he nestled back in to sleep. We just spent the afternoon holding him, cuddling him, kissing him, taking pictures of him, and feeding him. It was so nice and really made us eager to get him home. Leaving him today was NOT easy. I think something was just different in the fact that he was not on any intervention so it felt like he didn't need to be there and that he was just a normal baby. It was hard to put him down and walk away from him since he was so "normal".

So what is going on from here? They are pretty much just monitoring him to make sure he doesn't have any further breathing problems. He is eating like a champion. They try to feed the babies every 3 hours on a schedule but they said he wants none of that. He is eating more often and a lot more than they were originally offering him. They had us bring up the car seat and were going to do that test sometime last night on him so hopefully he passed that! It is so great to be in this place. At this point they are pretty confident he will be home by Friday so we are almost through this storm.

We are so thankful and grateful to everyone for their thoughts, words of encouragement, and prayers while we are going through this time. We are often asked how we are doing and how I am recovering. Emotionally, I think we are handling this about as good as can be. It is so difficult to have your newborn baby sick. It is so hard to not have Malachi at home with us. It was so unnatural to have this baby I carried and had bonded with be instantly removed from my body and not get to see or touch or hold him. It has brought out this momma bear instinct in me and I am going to have a really tough time sharing him with others for awhile. As far as my recovery it is going really well. It is amazing what the body can do when it is forced to recover quickly. I am very tired and feel like I am running on fumes most of the time, but that isn't going to get better anytime soon and I am very ready for Mr. Eli to be the one keeping me awake at night!

Another Day Closer

Day 4 - Tuesday the 8th:

Today Elias continued to make huge improvements. The doctor really didn't want to push it so he left him on C-Pap, but lowered the pressure to a 3. This is basically no pressure. When we got up there, he had pulled his C-Pap out and was breathing just fine on his own so the nurse assured us that we were almost done with the breathing stuff.

It was so nice to see him not on the IV anymore. One less wire hanging from his body. He was also so content to not be under the jaundice lamps anymore so he could enjoy his life swaddled again :) We just enjoyed our time holding him again. He was content to be in our arms for the day! The nurses now are just kind of letting us be. The only thing we can't do is move him on our own because they don't want to mess up the C-Pap. But all they do is say, "it is time for a diaper change" or bring in the syringe for the oral care and hand it to us.

Today He got a new roommate. We were there when they brought in a very premature baby (under 2 lbs) and even with a situation like that, they were all calm and collected and got her stabilized quickly. I know they handle situations like that everyday - it is truly incredible. Eli is definitely one of the big boys in the NICU though!

We didn't stay as long in the NICU today. Malachi was struggling and needed some Mommy and Daddy time so we were planning on bringing him home for the evening. Plus - it was his 6 month Gotcha Day and we wanted to celebrate!

It was a little hard to leave so early in the day, but the nurse assured me not to worry and that Eli would be just fine. She said he would probably be moved to the other, less intensive side of the NICU that evening and that she really thought we would not be seeing that C-Pap machine the next time we came in. He was fussing when we tried to leave, so I just couldn't leave the bedside with him upset. We had somehow lost his binky, so the nurse had to get him another one. With a binky in his mouth, he was one perfectly content little boy and I could leave a little easier.

One final picture of that C-Pap Machine and Eli letting everyone know he wanted his binky

So off to celebrate with Malachi we went. The boy lives for Ice Cream so Peter's parents got him an Ice Cream Cake. He really enjoyed the Ice Cream part, but more than that he discovered Oreo Cookies for the first time and really enjoyed those cookies!

Malachi - You have been such a joy in our lives over these past 6 months. Life would not be the same without you. You put a smile on everyone's faces with your silliness and the joy that you have! Happy half Gotcha Day big boy!!!

The nurse called us in the evening. First thing she did was assure us that Elias was fine :) She wanted to let us know that they had moved him to the other area and also wanted to let us know that they had taken him of the C-Pap machine. This came as a huge surprise to us and we were so very excited and hopeful that he would do well with it off.

We just called and checked on him. He is still off the C-Pap machine and has taken his first bottle! Another few (big steps) closer to getting him home!!!

Day 3 - Monday the 7th

Today we once again, spent our day in the NICU. Elias was still doing really good. They tried to take him off of the C-pap but he did not respond as well as they wanted so they had to put him back on it. They were however, successful in lowering the pressure down to 4 - so another step closer. They feel like he is very close to coming off of it, but want to make sure he doesn't have to work too hard at breathing which could set him back. Plus, he needs every calorie he can get right now and they don't want him wasting calories on trying to breathe. So, I am just trying to be a patient momma :)

I did ask the nurse today if he would spend the remainder of his visit in the level 3 NICU or if he would be moved to level 2. She told me he is actually probably "too healthy" to be in level 3. So that made me feel better. She said to not panic if we come in someday and he is not in his spot, that they probably moved him.

When we got there, they were putting a new IV in. They said he has very squiggly veins, so they had a tough time. They were trying to bribe him with sugar water in a syringe to keep him happy. The poor boy has poke marks all over his body from all the different places they have tried to get IV's and run different tests. I hate that he is having to be bothered so much, but I know it is for his own good. After no luck they finally had to settle for a vein in his foot. It was hard to listen to his unhappiness. I just want to scoop him up and take him home where he won't have to be poked and prodded so much.

He also has to spend all of his time under the lights for his jaundice. That means he can't be swaddled. So he is constantly flailing his arms and legs. Poor little guy :(

After they got the IV, they had to take the prongs out his nose and suction his nose and clean him up. They did this the night before, so we knew what to expect. Once again they had to upset my boy. They discovered he loves his pacifier and that seems to be the one thing that offers him comfort while they pick on him all the time.

After that, they made him happy by swaddling him and handing him to me! His reward for all their cruelty :) They also gave him his food in the tube during this time so he was quite a happy boy. We got to spend some time talking to the nurse about what else needs to happen before he can come home. He needs to continue to up his feeds and be able to eat without the feeding tube. In order for him to be able to eat without the tube, he needs to be off C-Pap. She thinks he will do well with the feedings as she said he sucks really well on the pacifier and is starting to let them know when he is hungry. He also needs to be gaining weight, which up to this point he has not done (which is normal). He does not need to be back at his starting weight, just needs to be gaining again. He needs to be able to regulate his own body temperature without being under the heater, which she believes he would be able to do but since he is naked under the jaundice lamps all the time, they have to give him heat. He may also need to pass a car seat test, since he is so small. This would mean he needs to be able to sit in the car seat for an hour and keep his vitals up during that time.

All these things seem doable. The biggest ones of concern are getting him to eat and having him start to gain weight. One step at a time..........

They also sent up someone from lactation to talk with me. So we are definitely getting some cues that we are almost through the breathing issues and then we can start working on the other stuff.

After awhile the respiratory therapist came in to check on us. I asked her if she needed him back and she said no. She asked if we wanted to switch parents though. I keep telling Peter that I will share, but he hasn't wanted to. He has been letting me have my time, which they really do push the bonding time with mommy! He still said no, but the respiratory therapist and myself kind of made him :)

Peter with his mini-me:

Eventually it was time for us to leave. Always the biggest bummer part of the day. But we still have a little boy at home who wants to see us and we also are really tired and need to get sleep. It will be so nice to have everyone back together in one place.

A picture of a picture of him when he was off C-Pap. Yup, looks like his daddy!

On the way home, I was thinking just how amazing medical technology is and I was so thankful that I live in a place where my children are able to get the medical attention they need. I think of all the babies born worldwide, maybe a week or two shy of the point where they would be okay, but they don't have the medical care options. It is hard to think of what happens to them. To realize, that Eli would not be here with us right now, to know that he would not have survived without this type of medical intervention puts it all into a different perspective and makes me so sooo thankful. I just cannot imagine losing him, especially to something that in the NICU they can treat so easily.

Update: I just talked with the doctor this morning. They are not going to try and take him completely off the C-Pap today, but they are going to lower the pressure to a 3 and the doctor believes he will do just fine coming off the machine tomorrow. They are also going to take him completely off IV feeds (they were supplementing him with a little bit of sugar water through an IV). They are upping his feeds once again to 25cc's and this evening will up him to 30 (so one ounce). His bilirubin levels are back down so no more jaundice lamp for him, which means he can be swaddled and happier! We are getting there - Go Elias!!!