Mothers' Day

Free Free Free at last!!!!

Today O got rid of all of her medical equipment except the feeding tube.  She got to put a nightgown on over her t-shirt, and she can be swaddled in one blanket and not need any more blankets.  She is out of the incubator and in the isolette. She is regulating her temperature just beautifully!  It was amazing how all of the sudden her temperature regulation kicked into gear! 

O still will need to spend most of her time swaddled since she was a pre term baby.  They want the babies to have to kick hard against the swaddle as if they were scrunched in the womb. This strengthens their muscles.   O is floppy.  They tell us that most of what we see is probably the Down Syndrome low muscle tone floppiness.  She will need to be swaddled for the first 4 to 6 weeks after she gets home.
Look who woke up today!!! O slept all day yesterday.  It was great to see her eyes for a little while this morning.  She seemed to wake up and look Mama O in the eyes and say, "Happy Mama's Day, Mommy!  I am glad I got here for the big day!"  We were so excited by all the progress that O made today. The biggest milestone was moving to the step down unit of the NICU.  She is classified as feed and grow.  That means that once she is feeding completely on her own by bottle with no feeding tube and still growing that she can go HOME!!!   (the driving back and forth 1 1/4 hours each way is getting to be a bit much!)   O is doing good with the bottles, but she needs to be able to eat all the ounces they want her to before she can go home.  

O now weighs 4 lbs 5 oz  (our weight yesterday was inaccurate)

The doctor said that she may be ready to go home as early as Wednesday!  Please pray that we can go home soon!  We are all ready to be home together!  Doctor also said that O is very healthy for a baby with Down Syndrome.  Music to our ears!  She will have another echo-cardiogram done to make sure that her heart is truly doing well. Doctors tell us they hear no murmur and believe that her heart is good!  Praise God!

We had been praying for the birthmom, as I know many of you have too.  It has been rough emotionally.  In addition to the adoption plan, she had a C-section (emergency) and it was rugged.  She also was worried about O in NICU.  Today, the birthmom called Mama O to wish me a Happy Mothers' Day!! Wow!!! Hearing her say that gave me permission to be truly Happy about my first Mothers' Day.  I told her that entrusting O to us made us happier than we could ever express. She was so happy to hear this.  We have a great birthmom. She has a sweetness about her that is so dear.  We think that O has her eyes.  

O is a great kid!  She is so cool!  We are so blessed!!!  

We began praying with O the first day we met. She really likes the Our Father.  She will flutter her eyes when we pray.  She cannot wait to be Baptized!!!  She thinks that is going to be awesome! We have told her all about St Mary's and she is so excited to join! She cannot wait to hear Father Dave tell all the stories about Jesus!  (and hear Deacon Roger sing!)

Peaceful Day!

She looks so adorable sleeping.... even in her incubator. We spend a lot of time just watching her sleep. They keep her in there for long periods of time so she can simply rest. She should not even be born yet.  She sleeps almost all the time now, except to squirm for diaper changes, and fuss about getting her temperature taken.  She barely wakes up to eat.  She is taking over an ounce via bottle.

Today was a peaceful day for us and all of NICU.  We were moved to a new room. We had been in an observation room, because there were 49 babies and 45 beds.  Our new room has a window!!!!! It is great to see outside and get natural light. We had been feeling as if we were locked up in a kennel.  I think seeing outside and natural light probably helped us regain our calm.  

Todays FYI:

Weight   4 lbs 4.6 ounces

No IV nutrition

No supplemental Oxygen

Only some feeding by feeding tube.

over an ounce of formula by bottle every 3 hours.

Bili-blanket for jaundice, but numbers are improving.

Regulating her temperature much better.  Not perfect. But improved.

We are watching instruction videos and reading binders full of info from the hospital on Down Syndrome, pre term babies and low birth weight babies.  They make sure that their parents do the homework assigned by the hospital. Very thorough!

She needs to get fully eating by  bottle and regulating her temperature for herself before she can go home. They usually want the babies to be waking up to cry to be fed, but sometimes they will send the baby home on an every 3 hour care schedule.  That would be fine with us. We are in the rhythm of that schedule at the hospital and would welcome seeing her in the middle of the night every 3 hours!  New parents!!!!  Just want her with us!!!!

A nurse who knows more about DS said that she is doing really well for a baby with Down Syndrome.  She said that she is more floppy than typical pre term babies. That is what we thought.  But we are doing really well handling her and feel confident.

More tomorrow....

Little Glo-worm

Today O's bilirubin level was up (jaundice), so she was put in a bili-blanket.  This is similar to the grow light therapy.  The light makes her swaddle blanket glow a neon blue color.  We could hold her with this on.  If her levels go up, then they will have to use the grow lights. 

Today her skin was less of that new born "I just spent 8 months in a bathtub" shriveled up look.

She is gaining weight.  She now weighs 4 lbs 4.8 oz.  Either we are getting used to what she looks like, or she is filling out some.  

Her platelet count was low today. They are rerunning the test, and if it is still low then they will request a transfusion.  O's veins don't like to give blood or take IV's so it takes a team of nurses and about an hour before they get the job done.  Our brave little sweetheart usually falls asleep during the process. After it is all done, she is exhausted.  

She is taking more formula from the bottle and less IV nutrition.  When she has been exhausted by the medical team, they will give her a feeding by the tube.

Mama O is getting really good and quick at changing a diaper through the little holes in her incubator.  

Thanks to everyone for their care, concern, support and prayers!  It means so much!

(We learned today that for the time being no one but us (and birth-mom) can visit her. It gets lonely for us in NICU, but this is adoption and we just say Yes and Thank you.)

3 days old

The woman with Peter is our adoption social worker. She is a sweetheart!

Some highlights of the day:

O weighs 4 lbs 4 oz. and she can take 5 cc of formula from a bottle. The IV is still in though to give her enough nutrition.  She sucks the 5 cc down in no time flat!  She is sucking well on her pacifier when it is time to do a medical procedure. She is such a brave little girl. The nurses were struggling with doing a new IV "poke" but O just fell asleep. I think that Daddy's warm hand on her belly helped!  She loves her Daddy!

O is sleeping a lot so we spend a lot of time just standing by her incubator watching her sleep.  We have "action" movies of her sleeping!  :-)

Yes, she does look a bit jaundiced today. Her numbers were higher, but no grow light yet.

We are now licensed for Foster Care. This helps an adoption go more smoothly in Berrien County, as it gets the judge involved sooner in the whole process. He is very good at protecting the rights of birthmom.

Thanks to everyone for the prayers and support! We appreciate you all so much!!!  Your support means so much!  

That is the latest on our beloved little chickadee.  (she has bird legs :-)   )

2 days old photos

O had a good day! 

This afternoon the oxygen came off! Hooray!!!!

The doctor says that her heart looks great and that she doesn't need another cardiologist appointment until she is one year old!  Praise God!  So many prayers were answered!

She took some formula through her feeding tube. It seemed to go well.

She is peeing and pooping!    Mama O changed diapers and also took her temperature (under her arm).  The wonderful nurses are training us.  It was a bit tricky to change her diaper through the two holes in the incubator. But all went well.

All is going smoothly for the adoption.

Doctor says she might be in the hospital for 2 to 3 weeks. We are praying for the shortest amount of time.  

Baby O is the best!

After our first meeting with Baby O

First of all, Baby O's new adoptive parents have to state that she is absolutely perfect!   

Here are some details:

Born:  

on May 5, 2009

at 4:51 a.m.

weighing 4 lbs 3 oz

length 17 1/4 inches

She is in neo natal intensive care  (NICU)

O is doing pretty well for a preemie but is on oxygen, a feeding tube and hooked up to lots of monitors. She is having a little problem keeping her temperature regulated, but we were able to hold her for lots of hours. Daddy O would warm her up, then Mommy O would hold her and we would put extra blanket on top of us to keep the warmth in.  Team work!  That did the trick!  She loves to be sung too!  We prayed our family evening prayers with her, and she joined in with her prayers of Praising God!  God did a really good job with O! 

C is doing fine, although VERY tired!  We saw her hold O and then she passed O off to us and C went to her room to sleep!!!!  C loves O dearly.  O is lucky to have her for her birthmom. It will be hard for C to let her go. But it is clear that she is not wavering at all in her decision to place O with us.  C is courageous and a wise woman. We met the maternal grandma too.  A very nice beautiful woman. She gave each of us a warm hug!  

Keep checking back with our BLOG. We will update as often as possible.

Olivia is here!

Praise God!!!

Olivia was born!!!

Tuesday

May 5, 2009

She is in Neo natal intensive care  (NICU)

Weighs over 4 lbs.....  Still waiting on more details.

More later.....

Cyndi is doing fine!

Glory to God!!!!