Mama, I'm Coming Home

I'm currently rocking Josiah to sleep to this Ozzy Osbourne song (Mama, I'm Coming Home) - at our house! The doctor discharged him on Monday, and it's been a whirlwind couple of days trying to get moved back into our house after our 11 night hospital stay. We are finally starting to get settled, but still have lots to do. Starting tomorrow we will have guests at our house until the end of the year which will be fun (and nice for us when we force them to take the 2:30 a.m. bottle feeding shift!).

Josiah and I are adjusting nicely to staying home together - it is SO good to have him home. He has his 1st follow-up doctor appointment tomorrow, so hopefully he has picked up some weight (he was back up to his birth weight on Monday) - we'll keep you posted.

Sorry for the short entry - it is not easy to type with one hand! :) Here are a couple of pics of our cute little boy!

This is his 'daddy's little helper' outfit. We decided not to let him help his daddy yet though...Jason had to use the chainsaw to take care of a big fallen branch in our backyard. Josiah won't be helping with that type of thing until at least next week.

Here he is in his carseat - he says 'thanks Grandma & Grandpa R'!

In case we don't have time to post before then - Merry Christmas!!

Let it snow!

Yesterday was very busy! We attempted to feed Josiah every time by either nursing or using a bottle - trying to get away from using the feeding tube. We only used the feeding tube once yesterday afternoon, which is a huge amount of progress from previous days. Then overnight last night he decided to pull his feeding tube out, and the nurse said "fine, now you have to eat without it!". They may have to put it back in depending on how well he does with eating, but we're hoping that we've seen the last of the feeding tube!

Here's the little guy without the feeding tube - I think he is mad about the girlie hat he has to wear all the time...

Also last night they had us bring in our carseat & the base so they could test him in it. I guess with pre-term babies there is a chance their airway could get cut off depending on the angle of the carseat (because they're so small) and/or if they aren't strong enough to hold their heads up a little bit. So they put him in the carseat for an hour and monitored his breathing, heart rate, etc. He was able to pass this test, so that brings us one step closer to being able to take him home!

Today we have gotten to keep him in our room since 7:30 a.m. with just a few interuptions. It has been great!

Here are a couple of pics from yesterday:

1 week birthday

The little guy is one week old as of 4:31 a.m. today. I got to hang out with him in the room for a couple of hours today while Jason was at work, and to honor the special event, he decided to pee all over himself again when I took his diaper off to change him. He loves that. He did great this morning staying awake & alert - he's getting stronger every day. However, after 2 back-to-back feedings he was zonked out for the rest of the day. Not much else to report except that he is the cutest baby ever. Looks like we'll be here through the weekend and into next week. We aren't getting any indication from the doctors or nurses on when he can come home - it all just depends on him getting stronger and picking up some weight.


Jason took his final today and is now done with school for a month! That is very exciting. He has been doing a great job of handling school/finals, going back to work, and having a new baby (including washing the pump several times in the middle of each night) & an overly emotional wife. He is a great husband and dad!


It was kind of a crazy day so we didn't take many pictures, but here is one of Josiah and his "aunt" Julie.

Venturing out of the NICU!

We had a really fun day today!! Our favorite NICU nurse let us bring Josiah to our room (unsupervised - *gulp*) TWICE today for a total of about three amazing hours. It was SO fun to get to hold him and spoil him a little bit. I tried to change my first diaper without the nurses there, and I think I used three diapers because he kept trying to pee on me! We had to change his clothes, blankets, and even his ankle bracelet after that incident.

Jason wanted me to feed Josiah cookies & donuts to try to fatten him up so we could take him home sooner...

Josiah & his daddy...notice that the cookies are closeby.

As for medical stuff, the little guy gained 2 oz. yesterday (according to his weight this morning), so he's back up to 5 lbs. Hopefully he will have gained a little more when they weigh him tomorrow morning. His bilirubin count was down slightly which is good, so they're going to skip a day and re-test him the next day (with the assumption that it will continue to go down). This is pretty cool considering that about 60% of all babies have jaundice, and preterm babies are at a higher risk for it. Also the little guy seems to have a little bit of a diaper rash. Here's what the nurses are using to treat it (no joke!):

We are continuing to try to be patient while we wait for Josiah to have the stamina to eat without the help of the feeding tube. This is not as easy as it sounds!

Thanks again for your thoughts & prayers. Oh, and if you could sneak in a prayer for Jason's final tomorrow, that would be great! :)

Another Day in NICU

Today was Josiah's 5th day in the world. That is really is about it for an update today. A lot of the status quo and more patience required. His weight and billirubin count did not change much from yesterday so hopefully we can start gaining weight and decreasing the billirubin count. He only tried to nurse once today but he was just pretending to be awake and quickly decided to go to sleep and therefore no nursing practice. This little bit of information blew me away this morning, one ounce of formula has 20 calories in it, he is eating 1.3 ounces at a time eight times a day only 208 calories is what he is eating for day. I ate that in two cookies that I had today.

Danita and I decide to sneak out for a little date night at Lone Star. We hope that the NICO is the most expensive baby sitter that we will ever have!


Here he is after trying to nurse.

Here is good shot of his face, he decide to wake up a little this afternoon.
Working on the nursing instinct with the pacifier while he eats via the feeding tube.
The day five family photo at home in the NICU.

Day 4

Josiah is continuing to progress nicely. He is doing great with everything and is starting to become more fiesty (as the nurses say). Last night he pulled out his feeding tube (that's the 2nd time he's done that), so now they put him in a sleeper that restricts the use of those curious little fingers! He must have been feeling honery last night, because they also told us that one time when they were changing him, he decided to pee all over the place. At least that will make Jason & I feel better about when he does that to us!

The weather here is supposed to get crazy tonight - 1/2 to 1 inch of ice is what they're predicting. My mom left today so she could make it home before the roads got bad. She did a TON to help us while she was here - from cleaning our dirty house to cooking us real food (we got tired of hospital food and fast food pretty quickly) to washing the baby's clothes and lots more. Thanks Donna!

Also today Jason's sister April and her three boys came to town - they have not had electricity at their house for 2 days now, and we're hoping that our house does not lose power while they're here! With the storm we'll see!

Still waiting for the little guy to learn how to eat...it seems like a slow process but he is learning quickly. We have had two good attempts the last two times we've tried. We are hoping that one day soon he will be able to stay in our room!

Here is Danita getting Josiah dressed:

This was supposed to be a picture but we didn't notice that the movie feature was on. Oops!

Upgrade Accommodations

Josiah is continuing to do awesome. He was upgraded this morning to an open air crib. That means he is maintaining his body temperature very well..ROCK'ON. He is still having some good bowel movements, I never thought I would be so excited about poop!! Since he is having good bowels he is keeping his billirubin(sp?) count down so no jaundice and thus no treatment.

I don't have much else to say. Our days are going so fast, by the time we hold him while feeding it is time to pump, then clean, then try and eat or talk to people then repeat every three hours. We just stay focused on the next three hours and that is the most important part.

Eating from the breast is the next big step. I guess white premature boys are the slowest to figure out the sucking instinct, so slow that the NICU nurses call them "wimpy white boys". I think he is still the strongest little boy and not the least bit wimpy but I could be biased. He is just a little stubborn and is enjoying being lazy!

Below are the pics from today.

His Cute Eyes

A Couple of Video's

This is me trying to change my first newborn diaper yesterday!!!

Picture Update

Josiah is doing well. His name means "the Lord Supports" and that as been so true (you can read the rest of his story in 2 Kings 22 or following this link: http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults2.php?passage1=2%20Kings22&book_id=12&version1=31&tp=25&c=22). He has been progressing very well and is digesting all of his food. He moved off of oxygen so quickly, now he is eating strongly, he is having digestive activity all of this after only two days. Short of naming him little miracle, we think the name has been indicative of his life and hopefully will continue to be. Thanks again for all the prayers and support it does make a difference. Danita is still doing well and is approved to be discharged today. We will be staying in the hospital until Josiah is released but it is nice to know that Danita can step out if she would like. Of course with all the ice and cold, she probably won't be.

I have to say that the NICU here as been wonderful, everything has been good but these NICU nurses are special people. Candy has been our primary day nurse and all we can say is wow! She has been amazing, she is so knowledgeable and encouraging and dedicated to her job, I do not know enough good adjective to represent how awesome she is. I have to tell this story because it is so representative of her. We are having some bad weather, snow, ice, freezing rain, just a normal KC winter storm. So that she could be here and not miss work due to roads and to help cover shifts if needed she has stayed in the hospital the last two nights and might do it again tonight. She has been sacrificing for her job and is taking great care of Josiah. Please say a prayer for her and her family and ask many blessings for them.

Here are the promised pics mostly from today:

Sleep is overrated

Lots has happened since the little guy arrived but we've been just a little busy (ha). For starters, he has a name - Josiah Jason R. We're not sure if he likes it yet but he doesn't get a vote! Here's a family photo:

Great news from the NICU - all of his cultures have come back negative (meaning no infection), so they have taken him off antibiotics and have removed his IV. One less cord to worry about! He is eating well (through a tube in his nose to his stomach) and digesting almost all of what he eats. He had his 1st bowell movement (sorry if this is too much detail for some of you, but this is a big deal according to the nurses!) early this morning.

He is getting cuter by the minute. Yesterday we got to hold him a lot more than the day before which was so great. He was awake & alert quite a bit which was also fun. His eyes are currently blue but based on the color of our eyes, we're guessing that will change!

We will try to update with more pics soon! We really appreciate everyone's prayers and are very thankful for the all love & support we have felt over the past couple of days!

Surprise Week 34

Well week 34 has started like the last couple of weeks. We debated over the weekend if we should pack an overnight bag, just in case you know. But as usual we were busy and didn't get it done. Oops! That was a bad idea. Danita decided to wake me up at after only 15 minutes of sleeping with the announcement of "oh i think my water broke", this is 12:30 am! What how can that be we were only 34 weeks not 40! Turns out the baby doesn't count in weeks and he was tried of fitting his 5 lbs 4 oz 19 inch body inside Danita.

We headed to the hospital in the cold under the assumption that we would be coming home a few hours later. Only when we arrived at the hospital the nurses said, you are going to have a baby tonight as you are already at dilated to 4 cm's this is 1:30 and no contractions. From here on out the time get's a little fuzzy because it happened so quickly. Basically at 2:00 Danita decides on the great pain reliever the epidural. By 2:15 ish the Dr arrives and starts to drug Danita by 2:45 he is done. We check again at 3:15, 10 cm's time to have the baby. Danita was allowed to relax for about 30 minutes before the pushing began. She pushed hard for about 45 minutes and at 4:31:

Here are some more pics

What a Champion my wife is, that is a lot of pushing and still beautiful!

Here he is getting poked and prodded about 11:00.

Here he is with Mom:

Here I am with our amazing little baby:

As of the time of this post, no name! sorry, we've been busy and now we are tired and going to take a nap. Also Little Mr. No Name was using supplemental oxygen for the first few hours but seems be to doing fine with out it now. Right now mr. early baby is doing well. Thank you all for praying for this and for praying for a healthy baby! Danita is doing good too!

Hiccups

The baby currently has hiccups. He has had them a lot lately - I'm not sure what he's doing in there but I think he may have a drinking problem. We're currently in week 33. The emails all tell me that he is about 4.5 lbs - we have our 2nd and final ultrasound on Friday (just 2 days away!), so we should find out about how big he is then.

A big event happened in our lives and marriage this week - Jason volunteered to help me decorate for Christmas! Those of you who know Jason know that this is huge. He usually won't touch holiday decorations, but now (thanks in large part to Jason) our house is very festive.

Have a great week everyone!

Turkey week

We've slacked off this week in updating the blog. So better late than never...

Last weekend we had our KC baby shower. It was fun and we had yummy carrot cake! Here's a picture of the group:

Due to the dramatic temperature drop this week, Jason spent some time working on the pantry. He got the back wall of the pantry in so that most of the cold air from the garage stays in the garage.

Here's a picture of me - we're at 32 weeks now and quickly approaching 33! I've almost made it to the doorknob...

We are currently having fun hanging out with Jason's parents (who were nice enough to come up to see us for Thanksgiving). We got to see Jason's aunt & cousins on Thanksgiving, and the next day Jason's sister & our nephews came up to visit for the day, which was really fun. We got a lesson in making Debby's famous cinnamon rolls (they are SO good), which we have been eating non-stop ever since!

We hope you all had a fabulous Turkey Day!

No more painting!

First off, thank you to everyone who responded with a positive delivery story! Those were really nice to hear.

Last week, the plan was for my parents to come on Thursday morning and help us with painting the baby's room, replacing the windows in the baby's room, and other various house projects. However, I got a call from my mom on Wednesday saying that both she & my dad had strep throat. So I was thinking 'bummer, they won't be able to come help us'. But then my mom told me that her doctor said they could come and that they wouldn't be contagious after 24 hours of taking the antibiotics. So even though they felt like crap, they came on Thurs night and stayed until Saturday night and worked non-stop almost the whole time (with the help of some strategically placed BBQ and Krispy Kremes). They were an amazing help!!! Here are some before and after pictures of the baby's room. Keep in mind that it is not done yet, but it's getting pretty close!

Before. This is not the best picture. Not sure why the camera is mostly pointed at the floor, but at least you can see the original wall color.

After. We love the way the color turned out, and we think the new windows are amazing. This picture was taken after painting and installing the new windows, priming and putting 2 coats of paint on the walls, painting and installing quarter-round on the floors and the windows, painting the baseboards, and filling nail holes & painting over them (we were exhausted by Sunday!).

Here's an 'after' picture with the blinds hung and some of the furniture back in place. We were sad to cover up our beautiful new windows, but we thought the baby might want some privacy.

We still have some small stuff left to do, but hopefully we'll get it done this weekend.

Here's me at 31 weeks! 9 weeks to go. Sometimes that sounds like forever, and other times it sounds super short. I feel very fortunate that I still feel good. I am still able to put socks on by myself, although it is getting harder!

Have a great week everyone!

Wanted: good delivery stories

Welcome to week 30. Only 10 weeks to go! I am starting to get freaked out about delivery, so if you have any delivery room horror stories, please keep them to yourselves. However, if you have any amazing stories about people who have a 5 minute labor with no pain, then I'd love to hear those.
We had a fun time going to my parent's house this past weekend. My family got us some really fun baby gifts and even humored me by having a BBQ and not calling it a 'shower'.

I went to the doctor again today - everything is still right on track. When the doctor was pushing on my belly to find the baby's heartbeat, the baby decided he didn't like that, so he kicked her. Hopefully she won't hold it against him.

Jason's truck is currently getting worked on, so please pray that it's not too expensive to fix! Also, last week a guy in Jason's group got laid off, so we are very thankful that Jason gets to keep his job. It is weird to me to have a "layoff" and it be only one person, but I'm not going to argue!

Oh, and if you weren't sure what I was trying to carve in the pumpkin from last week, it was Shrek. If you couldn't tell, then I'm going to blame it on the picture being a little blurry (because obviously I'm an amazing pumpkin carving artist).

Have a great week!

Surprises...

Happy Halloween! I bought a pumpkin to carve, but didn't take the time to carve it until today at 5:30 p.m. Can you tell what I was trying to carve? We had fun tonight seeing all the trick-or-treaters.
This past weekend we went to see the movie Into the Wild. We read the book together a while back. It was a good movie, but I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. Because of the movie, our son is not allowed to know about Alaska. Then on Saturday we helped Julie celebrate her 30th b-day! It was a fun day and hopefully she was at least a little surprised. Sunday marked the beginning of week 29. I am amazed at how fast this is going. One day this week I could have sworn that the little guy was inside my rib cage. Luckily he moves a lot.

Yesterday we took our first child preparation class, entitled "Baby Basics". It was a very high level class, but was good info for us. They had baby dolls for each of the couples there to use to practice putting on a diaper and swaddling. Well as 'luck' would have it, we were the only couple in the class who got a handmade cloth doll. Here's a picture of her all wrapped up.
When we moved the blanket that was sitting on our 'baby' to swaddle it, we were in for a big shock! Our 'baby' had hair in places that babies should not have hair. We spent the rest of the class trying to contain our laughter (but not doing a very good job). We're not sure why we were given a teenager instead of a baby to practice swadling on, but it was highly disturbing and hilarious at the same time.

help!

Can anyone tell me why blogger keeps deleting my paragraph spacing when I publish a posting???? It is so annoying!!!!

MUST EAT MORE SUGAR

We had a fun time this past weekend in New Orleans visiting my family. My great-grandma turned 90 on Monday so we were there for her surprise party. She had no idea that we were all coming to visit. And yes, that is right that she is 3 generations removed from me, and is only 60 years older than I am. She is still as fiesty as ever. We got to spend a little time in the French Quarter and have cafe au lait (decaf of course) and beignets. They were really yummy. It was great to see family, but let's be honest - it's really all about the food (that's the baby talking). :)

This week officially starts the 3rd trimester (week 28). Less than 3 months to go! I went to the doctor this week and took the gestational diabetes test. That means that I had to drink this crazy sugary/syrupy drink to overload my body with sugar and see how it would react. Well the baby thought that was great. He was kicking and rolling and doing acrobats that whole day AND the next day. I heard back today that I my glucose test came back normal, so I guess that means I can eat more sugar now!! The baby is excited.

Also this week, some friends at work threw me a baby shower! It was really fun to see everyone and eat Costco cake (more sugar!). And Jason & I are super grateful for all the great baby stuff we got!

If you liked the videos from the past 2 postings, be sure to check out the bloopers reel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLL5I_IcxrI

Have a great weekend everyone!

Little Acrobat

Welcome to week 27. The baby is currently over 2 lbs. and is approximately the size of an ear of corn. Another email I get tells me that he's over 14 inches long (if his legs were extended). One morning this week I woke up feeling him doing somersaults! He is becoming quite the acrobat.

We spent the past weekend at Apple Butter days in Mt. Vernon, MO. We had lots of fun hanging out with family and eating loads of kettle corn. And of course we had to get some apple butter. Jason taught our 2 year old nephew Trent that it's a fun idea to zerbert the baby. So he kept staring at my belly and then randomly lifting up my shirt to give him a zerbert. Luckily we weren't in public when Jason taught him that trick!

If you liked the posting from last week with the BBQ video, then be sure to check out the sequel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbrDDUU31jc

Have a great weekend everyone!

We don't need no education

The past week has been filled with Jason doing homework and me being bored. Jason has been writing a 15 page paper and preparing a presentation for one class, and studying for a final for his other class. His Wed night professor made him go to class this Tues AND Wed, so he's been in class THREE nights this week! That is not cool.

This is me at 26 weeks. We went to the doctor on Monday, and she said everything looks good. I'll now be seeing her every 2 weeks. When I go back on the 23rd, I'll be taking the gestational diabetes test so hopefully I will pass (despite the fact that I've already eaten my weight in candy corn this Halloween season).

I am very excited about the fall weather we've been having! It is especially good for me since almost all of my maternity clothes are for the fall/winter! Now hopefully I won't have to do laundry every couple of days.

I have been having fun lately helping with a series at church. We've been doing some fun video stuff. I'm definitely not the brains behind any of this - just the organizer! Here's a link to the week 1 video (it's a little over 3 minutes long):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1v3RR3I19M
Stay tuned for next week's sequel!

Why do babies need so much stuff?

Last weekend we braved the baby section of Target and the enormous overwhelming insanity that is Babies R Us. We are now officially registered (that's not a hint!), and we're hoping that we know everything we need! Actually the baby registry process at Babies R Us is way better than the one at Target - it took them 48 hours to get our registry online. Hasn't anyone told them that it is not smart to make a pregnant lady angry?

The rest of the weekend was full of homework and watching an exciting Chiefs game. We also got to hang out with some friends for a fun Octoberfest party where we had yummy homemade pretzels and we both (or all three) got to eat our 1st weinerschnitzel. It was really good, but we're guessing that you can't really go wrong with fried pork. We also watched "An Inconvenient Truth" which was a very interesting documentary about global warming. We're turning into somewhat extreme recyclers, so just tell us to shut up if we start preaching to you (but seriously, do you recycle?).

This week we signed up for classes - one of which is called 'Baby Basics' - neither one of us can remember the last time we changed a diaper so we're hoping this class can help. Also if either one of us is holding a baby that starts crying, our strategy has been to just give the baby back to his or her parents as quickly as possible - so maybe this class is going to help us figure out what to do with the baby now that we ARE the parents. Here's me at week 25. Almost to the 3rd trimester!

Chiefs fan?

The baby is currently the length of a carrot! But not a baby carrot. It's week 24 and I'm still feeling great. I'm still making Jason go running with me - not very far or very fast but it still counts in my book.

The past weekend was pretty relaxing which was a nice change of pace! Jason got lots of homework done but other than that it was a pretty uneventful weekend. We watched football on Sunday of course, but I ended up taking a 2 hour nap which started during the 2nd half of the Chiefs game. Despite the nap, Jason still claims that the baby got to experience his 1st Chiefs victory. The jury is still out on whether or not he's going to be a Chief's fan!

Karaoke Superstars!

A lot has happened in the past week! Last Thursday we went to a consignment sale and got some really cool cheap baby stuff! I also got some much-needed maternity clothes. Here are a couple of pictures of Jason playing with the baby's new toys. The first one is an attachment that came with the high chair to entertain the baby - but unfortunately Jason has already worn down the batteries. ;)

This one is a soft infant carrier that fits Jason perfectly!! For some reason that we can't figure out, his modeling career never really took off.

Jason took Friday off to work on the pantry. He got a lot done - finished the sheetrock and got the door we wanted - but ran out of time to get it hung. Maybe that's because he was secretly scheming a surprise birthday party for me!

We went out to dinner on Saturday night - when we came home, the first thing I noticed was that our living room rug was missing. My first thought was that we had been robbed (logically, there are tons of people who would want to steal our smelly old rug which has several holes in it). Then a bunch of my friends jumped out to say SURPRISE! And I was VERY surprised. It was a very fun night and I'd like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who came!! It was great to see everyone and catch up. And a special thanks to everyone who sang karaoke with me!

Here's me - week 23. I know I promised to wear something besides black this week but we weren't able to take the picture yesterday when I DID wear something besides black!
Also on Saturday we toured 2 of the maternity wards at the 3 hopitals where our doctor delivers. Tonight we toured the 3rd one. I guess now we have to make a decision!

The baby has been very active lately and it's really fun to feel him moving!