Merry Christmas to ALL!

We are 8 lbs 2 ozs.

Weighed this morning during a morning bath for Christmas. She won't know much this year, but she can have fun like the rest of us. We are all just thankful to have her home for Christmas.

Thank you all for everything, thank you doctors and nurses, thank you surgeons and respiratory therapists, thank you all for all you have done.

We will have a very blessed Merry Christmas!!

We wish the same on everyone.

P.S. Tell everyone about the $5.00 donation to win a computer. We need the donations.

The Foundation!!

OK, now ladies and gentlemen............The foundation is on and ready!!!!

We are the Early Journey Foundation. www.EarlyJourneyFoundation.org

The site is mostly working so forgive me, but I need one thing from everyone and everyone you know. We are trying to raise 1400.00 dollars to proceed with a press release, get our brochures completed and get to the hospital with our books and support! We have to START SOMEWHERE!!

Please go to the website, we are having our first fund raiser. We are asking for a $5.00 dollar donation for a chance to win a $1000 computer system complete with 15" LCD flat panel screen!! We have to sell 350 more tickets. The drawing is Jan 26th. The number will be on the website after the drawing AND if you send in your donation of any amount, we will know who you are. We will send your tickets out to you so you get a chance to be a winner.

WE REALLY NEED YOUR HELP!!!

Simply donate off this website or off www.EarlyJourneyFoundation.org, all donations are tax deductible and we will send you your tickets.

Please tell everyone you know and we can get these tickets sold to start our Journey to help other families. We already have our eye on three families in the NICU that we can help. Help us help them through the holidays.

Remember $5.00 = one ticket sent to you
$50.00 = ten tickets sent to you
$500.00 = 100 tickets sent to you
$1000.00 = Gold level donation, lots of tickets sent to you and a framed Gold level donor certificate.

Send in your amount today!! PLEASE!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**************************UPDATE*************************

I last spoke with you when we weighed

7 lb 11 ozs

Not a lot of weight gain last week due to two doctor's appointments, a Synagis shot, and a visit to our good friends at the NICU.

Well, here on Monday, 3 days later...

7 lb 15 ozs

SO CLOSE!!!

I predicted 8 lbs by December end, but we will beat it!!!!!

Doing real good right now with the feeds. Oh yeah, we are also 21 inches long with a head circumference of 14 inches.

Growing really well. She can hold her head up when I hold her upright. She is not picking up her head completely yet, but I fully expect it soon in a few short weeks. Going to grow during the Christmas holidays big time with all the turkey and cranberry dressing....whoa.
She had some icing off a pumpkin square last night......loved it. She even had a little of the pumpkin square. She had a green mouth from the coloring, it was very funny. She had a ball.

Other than her STILL not able to keep a pacifier in her mouth by herself, (this is only a problem as I have to get up and replace it back in her mouth every 3 minutes!!), she is doing great!!

I can't wait to put this new movie up, it will have sound, so make sure if you are at work, you have your speakers on!!

Synagis shot today

We had another Synagis shot today. We will have one every month until March. It was real quick and she only cried about 1 minute. Really over with fast.

It has sent her feeding schedule into a spin, as she has not eaten much today.

We took her up to the NICU to see if any of the best nurses on earth desired to see how much she has grown, several were very pleased. One of them discharged us and she was very happy to see her. She is really great and she wanted that oxygen tube out, as we all. It was really great to see them all again.

We told her not long. In fact, on Jan 3rd when we go, we will stop into the NICU again to see if more people would like to see her. Several of them did not get to see her. I hope they can then.

7 lb 10 oz yesterday, with clothes on this morning at the doctors, 8 lb. So the clothes must weigh 6 ozs. I told the nurse, I wish it was 8 lb's already!!

Later on tomorrow, I will probably try the new rice cereal thickening to see how that goes. She was gaining good weight on the rice cereal stuff, so maybe we can get back on track. But really I think it is all the stuff we have had to do in the last week. Doctor here, shot there. Definitely need to get her on track. We are also going to bundle her for less movement during night sleeps. We did it last night and it worked really well. She slept very very soundly.

Look for a new movie by tomorrow!!

Eye Exam this morning went fine..

She is a little near-sight at the moment. That is to be expected, nothing out of the ordinary. She tolerated it fine and is actually watching cartoons right now very happy. Wanted to wait til the eye exam to update everyone.

The feedings are at about 70 cc's. She is taking them quite well, some are less some are a little more. We are adding in a little more formula to the mix to ween her to taking in formula. It is possible that we can start adding rice cereal back to the more concentrated formula and create a thicker product, as with breast milk, rice cereal breaks down and does not thicken as much. Also the more formula will digest more slowly, and could cause more rapid weight gain. Anything for that.

7lb 9 ozs as of Sunday morning. Next weigh in might not be until Wed or Thursday. She has her next Synagis shot for RSV on Thursday morning...that is another not so fun day coming up.

So we are to watch tracking with her eyes, be careful to watch for cross eyes and lazy eye. She does not appear to have those but we are to watch. Next appointment in 6 weeks.

After the shot, we have no doctor appointments until Jan 3rd when we go off oxygen. She has been off oxygen many times as we test her and a big test for some time and did just fine. She does not need it but we keep it for support at this moment. The pulse oximeter shows good reads and no problems. That is good to know, we are tracking when it is bad. One thing we can trend is that after eating, she is a little low when digesting. She has calmed down for us when this happens but now with the pulse ox, we can see why she is calmed down, she is digesting and using oxygen to do it.

So all in all, we are moving right along.

Be sure to go visit the new pictures section and get a behind the scenes look at the MANY pictures it took us to snap before getting the right one to pick for her Christmas picture. See her like you have never seen before, cranky and screaming.

Her first Thunderstorm at home

And she sleeps right through it for a record sleeping period. Seriously loud thunder.....nothing. My dog is more scared.

7lbs 7.5 ozs for last nights weigh in.

She is on par since the oxygen shift for 1 to 1.5 ozs every two days. I do believe that this might increase next week as she has tended to go through spurts after changes.

Yes, it is 4 AM, preparing for a feeding. We have a problem with our frozen milk supply...she won't drink it. I mean literally, she can be hungry, you give her the thawed, prepared mix using frozen milk......nothing NOTHING but anger and spit and fight!! She does not like the taste of it. Switch immediately to mix using fresh or refrigerated milk, drinks the whole bottle. SO, besides figuring out how much frozen she will tolerate to be mixed with the fresh, we have a lot of milk that she might not drink. It does smell different..and mainly it smells like the sterile plastic tubes the hospital gave us.

Another new thing of hers is stimulus. She has to have it in some sorts when she is in her "feel good" time. That time is about 1 hour to 1.5 hours after a feed, Prevacid still within a 9 hour window, (speaking of that window...it exists, when you are about 2-3 hours til next dose, she is cantankerous and appears to be hurting from the reflux as she can be....1.5 hours after dose til about 9 hours....wonderful.)..anyway in this "feel good" time, she has to have a you, a mobile, her floor gym something, or she is a talking. And by talking I mean she gives a lot of new sounds. She seems to be practicing.

All in all, she is growing and needing less and less oxygen. Sometimes she pulls the prongs from her nose and we don't know when it happened and no alarms have went off since we went to the pulmonary doctor. Not even false ones. Hmmm. It seems her body has learned to breathe a little deeper to give her what she needs.

Spit ups are very rare, they happen when she just freaks out(outside the FG window) or when she chokes. Yes, she sometimes wants to feed so badly she takes the first sips before preparation. We have tried to show her the bottle and get her to prepare and say Ba Ba. She will stare at you doing all this and then not say a word.

She also is very poor at mowing the lawn or taking out the trash. She does not pick up after herself NOR does she change clothes after slobbering on them. She is not doing her chores, I will have a talk with her in the morning and fix this.

(Doesn't that last bit seem like something I will be writing in about 9 years.......scary)

Oh well, going to nap.

On that subject, you can tell your body needs sleep like ALL The TIME! It just does not get enought deep sleep and as you read, sleep is very important for all kinds of health reasons. I think once she sleeps through the night, my body will start sleep walking every 3 hours.

Pulmonary appointment went GREAT!!!

Her first pulmonary appointment went very well. She is now on half the oxygen that she was on, she is now on 1/16 of a liter flow. Very Very Very tiny.

She will stay on that until our appointment on Jan 3rd, in which she will come off oxygen if all goes well!!! Then she stays on the monitor for one more month and off of that on Feb 3rd. Now we have it all laid out. Keep RSV out of here, keep her healthy and growing and be free of cords by February.

See my Valentine day prediction is spot on.

Also the pulmonary doctor wrote a prescription for a Pulse Oximeter for us to use at home. He saw that we could use it to keep a chart of good oxygen times, which position is best for sleeping and other things a oxygen saturation monitor is good for.
He said we might have false alarms, however, we would know by our knowledge of her that it was a false alarm. We don't have to keep it on all the time and can use it as sparingly as needed. Very good. I have been asking for this for awhile and now we can chart good sats and bad sats for him before Jan 3rd.

So it went well we have a few more oxygen tanks and we get two big ones tomorrow for home use and we will continue to use the small tanks. We even got a smaller tank for travel now. Much easier to carry.

Today went very well, she is on the right road. Now keep the milk flowing in, and the growing going on!!!

Weekend Update with Anchorman Daddy

Proving a little to myself, here on a beautiful Sunday morning, I just had to change out her nasal cannula. Before that, she needed her weigh-in.

7 lb 5 oz - up 1.5 ozs from Thursday. Not bad, not really a spurt but not bad.

Trying something different with the feedings now, we are putting a s-l-o-w-e-r flowing nipple on for her to take a little longer to eat. We have to burp once during the feed, instead of at the end, but she is taking 60 cc's with not a lot of problems. We have only been on this new way about 4 times, but right now, it is the direction. The thinking process changed from get it in her first to let her pace it better because I saw at times, that she could handle longer feeds. Like when I had to set her down mid-feed to go yell at the dog, she took more food. SO, with that thinking we tried it, so far so good.

Also she is liking 60 cc's so much, she almost goes 4 hours between feeds. Not bad. As long as we are gaining. I still feel we will hit 8 lbs before the new year.

She loves her sweet potatoes. Got her some of those, after a full 60 cc's of milk, if she even acts hungry, in goes a teaspoon of potatoes. She smacks her mouth more times than a dog eating peanut butter. It is hilarious. Potato face then takes over and orange is everywhere.

Ok, back to what started all this....had to change the cannula... completely naked for the weigh and no nasal cannula. She was free completely for the first time. Boy, you should have heard the smiles, giggles, coos and what not. She was having a ball. Moving all around the bed, laughing, kicking playing. Not at all like that low oxygen child some measurements say she is, but like a happy pink, normal newborn. She was like that for easily 5 minutes. Then we had to retape the face and daddy went from the bestest man in the world for letting me free to a real crappy pooh pooh head!!

So far, she has not lived up to her new name this morning, Whiney the Pooh. She whines about food, whines if her outfit is bunched, if her diaper is moistened, if her blanket is frumpled, if she wants to swing, if the cartoons aren't on, if her hands are under the covers, if she needs to be held, if you are holding her too much, if she can't suck on her hand, if she is on her back, if she is on her stomach, if she is not asleep, if she is awake, if she has to pass gas, if she doesn't have to pass gas, if you turn football off, if you turn off the TV, if you don't play her nighttime song, if you turn on a light, if you turn off a light, if you stop the ceiling fan, if you don't turn on the Christmas tree, if you do turn on the Christmas tree....anyway you get the picture. Whiney the Pooh.

The books say she is at the peak of crying this month and by the end of the 3rd month, the crying becomes only in need. Right now she does not cry that much, she just grunts or yells to let you know any of the above. Then she smiles like all get out when you come to see what the deal is.

She really is amazing. Get her in feeding position and then not feed her within 3 seconds if you want to hear some lungs. Nipple in......silence.

Anyway, I was so excited for her to be without anything for just a few minutes I had to write this now. I give it one more month and then I think she could be like that permanently.

Wow. She will like that.

12/3 - 7 lb 3.5 oz - a little short

We needed to be 3500 grams and we are 3260 by December 4th to make the chart. BUT we are a lot closer than expected.

She is eating very well, taking 50 cc bottles in minutes. One burp and lay down time. There are times she struggles and then there are times she does not. It really depends on her mood, happy time, no reflux. Weird. But she is definitely getting stronger. Much stronger. Some of the burps she does would have sent a flood, but now she just burps.

We are increasing the bottle to 55 cc's to see if we can get more and more in her. So we started at 40 when we came home a little over 3 weeks ago, now we are going to 55. Not bad.

Doing real well. She has periods of need now, where she has to be held or paid attention to. She is noticing it is us. She is realizing her hand is a good sucking tool.

I have a couple of books to see where developmentally she should be as compared to normal babies and right now, with adjusted age, she is doing very very well. We are almost right on for wht the books say. We can hold up our head, track things with our eyes, make sounds for fun, play, smile on command, recognize sounds, scoot across the floor, sit up, pull our legs up, everything a two month old baby should be able to do.

But she is almost 5 months old....yeah, but remember, we have to go by adjusted age, she is out the womb 5 months, 3 of those were too early. For developmental items, we can't count what she was finishing in the womb out here in our atmosphere.

SO everything is going well. As of the feed right now after her bath, she must have gotten a little too excited, becasue we had a little spit, maybe 5-7 cc's but she ignored it and is now on another bottle of 30 after her 55. So a total intake before bed, 76-80 cc's of milk. Not bad. Oh yeah, I bought a little jar of carrots, we syringed them into her mouth, first time, no. Second time, YEAH! She took a teaspoon of carrots today in between feedings. That is good, it tides her over and PREPARES her for solid foods in the next couple of weeks.

The texture is different and some preemies don't eat solids til 5-6 years of age. Personally, they had some really really bad reflux, maybe not the right bottles, maybe different milk composition, but wow, we are not going to be like that. We are staying the course of development. Really we are right on it right now, would like for her to be a little ahead soon. I think we will be ahead by February. Yep.

By then we should also be alot of regular baby, unmonitored and unoxygen.

Valentine's day present huh? Not bad.

Getting a Christmas tree this weekend, she is going to stare at that forever. She loves little lights and the TV cartoons. Only Boomerang, the old school cartoons, the new ones are crap.