Ticking Along

Everything is going smoothly so far in our household. We are settled into a routine, I'm getting sleep, and life appears to be pretty normal. Xavier is growing more and more each day, and he seems to have sprouted overnight. He's now in 0-3 clothes, size one diapers, and taking 5 oz bottles. I'm not sure about his weight, but he was 6 lbs 6 oz at his pedi visit in July. My guess is that he's about 9 lbs now.
Speaking of pedi visits, his pedi discovered a small inguinal hernia at his last visit. We had to go out to Children's Hospital in Dallas for an ultrasound, where the pedi's findings were confirmed. He will have to have surgery to repair it, and the only question now is when. September 1, he goes for a consultation with a surgeon to see what his recommendation is as far as a time frame. I was a bit upset initially, but I snapped myself back into reality. I thought of all the things that so many parents suffer through in terms of their children's health, many of whom I met during Xavier's stay at Cook's Children's, and I was ashamed of myself. How dare I be upset over a procedure that is a non emergency, outpatient procedure when I witnessed parents left and right sending their newborns into surgery for serious conditions such as heart or lung issues? What about the children who have conditions that can not be repaired? Now that I have things in perspective, I am back to counting my blessings to have a son who, aside from being born prematurely, is growing and progressing normally. I will always thank God for this.

2 years and 2 months old

Layla turned two today. I can hardly believe it! The picture of the day of her birth is still etched deeply into my brain. Does it ever fade? Similarly, does the shock and awe of having children PERIOD ever fade? I have a two year old and a two month old. Saying that aloud makes me shake my head in awe. I still wonder, on many occasions, where exactly these children have come from.

Reading her birthday card from grandma first thing in the morning



Talking on her new cell phone on the way to McDonald's



Eating junk food





Here are a few pics of her eating her birthday cupcakes.




We had a great day today that included auntie, grandma, and her "bubby". We played at McDonald's, opened presents, and ate junk food. Saturday we will continue the celebration at the circus!

Layla is amazing! She has grown so much. I held her a couple of weeks ago, and she seemed so huge. I wondered if she seemed huge because now I have another child tied to the proverbial apron strings to compare her to, who happens to be so tiny, but now I know it is because she has grown like a weed. She is deeply into the terrible twos, but she still makes me laugh every day. She can identify 24 uppercase letters (M and W give her trouble), can identify her numbers 1-10, counts to 20, knows four colors and can sort by those colors, and knows six shapes. She has her two year doctor's appointment tomorrow, so I will get her stats then. I'm pretty sure she's about 28 lbs. I weighed her on our home scale which is probably not too reliable, but it gives a roundabout guess.

Xavier is doing well. He is now going four hours between feeds at night. I am so very grateful because this allows me to get eight hours of sleep which is unheard of in the land of newborns. I feed him at 11pm, Tim feeds him at 3am, and I feed him and get up for the day at 7am. Great stuff. He also has his two month appointment tomorrow, so I'll update his stats then. My guess is 6 lbs. He's a piggy. He takes twice what a guy his size should be taking, and that's on top of being on a higher calorie formula. He is going to be huge!

Here is Mr. Mohawk :)



With grandma



He is a true joy! The only issue we have right now is diaper changes. Whoever said boys are easier to change than girls got it ALLLLL wrong. I can assure you of that. I feel a gray hair squeeze itself into visibility every time I change my little guy's diaper. I'm not kidding.

We're home!

We brought Xavier home yesterday after a very tiring, challenging day. There is so much involved in discharging a premature infant, and it was taxing, both physically and emotionally. I have never been so happy as when we drove away from that hospital. I'm hoping to never see the inside of that hospital again.
He is now 4 lbs 5 oz, exactly Layla's weight when we brought her home from the NICU, ironically. Of course she was only one week old, and Xavier was 6 weeks 4 days old. His first night home is complete, and he and the rest of the family are upstairs sleeping as I blog and enjoy my last few moments alone for the day. His first night went well. Tim kept him downstairs for his 12 am and 3 am feed so that I could sleep. Xavier is a grunter, and his grunting would have kept me up all night. I took care of him at 5:30, and I will let Tim sleep in while I take care of both kids this morning. I expect our system to work out well...until he goes back to work, of course, then there will have to be some adjustments.
Layla is fascinated with him! She's always peering into his pack-n-play at him, trying to touch him, and trying to give him his paci--in his eye nonetheless--but she's still trying to be helpful. It will be interesting to see how her interactions with him unfolds over the next few months.

Anxious

Xavier is coming home this week! I'm not sure of the exact day because the NICU team are reluctant to quote an exact date, but steps toward going home have been made. We brought his car seat to NICU yesterday so they could do the car seat test on him. This is usually the last test before going home. They put the babies in the car seat to make sure they can tolerate being in a car seat for the ride home. They have also asked us to notify our pediatrician that we are coming home and to make an appointment to be seen Tuesday of next week. We are very excited and anxious to take him home. My guess is that he will be home by Saturday.
I am so glad that I prepared for his arrival early. I started working on his nursery when I was around 24 weeks pregnant, so it is now ready and waiting on him!
I can concentrate on him, instead of having to run around town picking out things for his room. As you can imagine, I'll be busy for the next few months. :)

Here are some pictures of his nursery











All we need is the baby!

No Answers

My 6 week postpartum visit went well, but it also confirmed that there will never be answers as to why my body does not like to be pregnant for a full nine months.

We talked in depth about why I went into preterm labor, and sadly, it is still and always will be a mystery. The pathology report on the placenta showed that it was 100% healthy and normal. Dr. W says clinically, she believes I abrupted since there was so much blood right before I had my c-section, but she can never say for sure. She says that I am just not a good candidate for another pregnancy, which is 100% fine with us because we only wanted two. She is just as disappointed as I am about not going further into a pregnancy than I did with Layla, but she is 100% confident that there was nothing else we could have done to have a better outcome. Talking with her really brought closure to this chapter in my life.

One Month

Xavier had his first bottle yesterday. His nurse told me before she started that babies this young usually do not have a good sucking action, so things may not go so well the first time. Well of course, in keeping with his trend of shocking people, Xavier took the whole bottle in less than 10 minutes! He loved it. The nurse tried to put the bottle in his mouth, and he promptly refused. She dribbled breastmilk into his mouth, and this piqued his interest. He instantly started to suck and did not stop until he was finished. The nurse was so excited that she said she was going to call his doctor to update him and see if he can get bumped up to two bottles a day instead of one. They will gradually increase his bottle feeds until he is taking eight bottles per day. When this happens, they will remove his feeding tube.


He is now 3 lbs 3 oz, and has had his first eye exam and visit from the physical therapist. The eye exam went well and his eyes are fine. The physical therapy visit was uneventful, but she did explain stress cues to me, such as splaying of the fingers, and this was helpful. When premature babies are overwhelmed by too much stimuli, they will show you they are stressed out and need peace and quiet.
Yesterday at 1 pm, it was feeding time for three newborns. How do I know this? They promptly let the entire nursery know. It was as if someone pressed a button on each baby because as soon as the clock struck 1, the babies began to scream in three part harmony. This of course made some of their monitors go off because crying so forcefully made their heart rates go up. Xavier started to squirm while I was holding him and straightened his legs. I knew he was becoming stressed, so I put him back in his isolet. Here is a picture of his grumpy look. He was not very happy about the noisy trio.




Layla is still having a difficult time adjusting because X's hospital stay has disrupted her schedule. I think she is starting to understand a little bit more that we had a baby. It's taking her a while to understand because she has never seen him in person. I talk to her about him all the time, and she loves to look through my phone at his pictures. She calls him W-X. LOL! That is definitely one for the baby book.

3 lbs!

As of May 10, Xavier passed 3 lbs! He was 3 lbs 1.4 oz, and I am so excited because passing 3 lbs was the first of my mini goals that I set for him. He will possibly start bottle feeding this Wednesday, and from then on the focus will be on learning to bottle feed 8 times per day and continuing to gain weight. I am so ready to bring him home to join our family full time!