Novermber 29, 2008

We all went to see Bree today! Riley gave her sister her first kiss from her (melts my heart to look at the picture!) and then her second... and then her third! In fact, Riley was very into giving her kisses. However, Riley thinks that Bree is a baby doll and even asked me to give Bree to her. (she said please in sign language and then held her arms out for Bree.) It was so cute, but I did not give her what she asked for obviously!

Adam hadn't seen Bree in about two weeks so he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw her! He got to feed her today, and she gave him quite a scare. She decided to choke on her milk, and we are both very jumpy with her. I think that will last for a bit considering what we have been through.

I was brave enough to hold both girls for a picture, which turned out quite nicely I might add! Riley was interested in Bree's nasal cannula and did try to pull it out. I think we are in for a bit of a struggle if she comes home on oxygen. Riley will have to learn to leave it alone.

Bree is doing great. She is up to 35 cc's of breastmilk, and is down to .1 liters of oxygen at 50%. She is attempted to be fed every feeding and as of right now the pattern she is holding at seems to be one full feeding by bottle, then she takes about half of the next one by bottle but becomes too tired to take the rest. She receives the rest of it through her feeding tube. The next bottle she drinks, she drinks all of it and etc... etc...

Hope this finds everyone happy, healthy, and in love with life!

November 28, 2008

Good evening!

Well, we have some good news and some bad news today. Good news is that all last night Bree ate her meals out of a bottle! She is up to 4 lbs 5 ounces and is doing GREAT in her big girl crib! The bad news is that they did her eye exam again today and her ROP is worse. They are talking about laser surgery (90 percent certain it will happen). They are re-checking on Monday and if it is the same or worse they will be doing the surgery next week. We are reassured that it is a short recovery time, but any type of surgery scares me.

Since her eye exam today, she has been tired and irritable. The eye exams are stressful for her and seem to ruin her day when she gets one. We are all going to see her tomorrow morning and to get a picture of both of the girls in their christmas dresses for our christmas cards. They both have off white and gold dresses that are oh-so -cute!

I tackled and braved the crowds today for Black Friday shopping deals and I emerged triumphant! I actually need to get to wrapping some presents so.........

I hope this finds everyone happy, healthy and in love with life!

November 27, 2008

From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving! We hope that you enjoyed your day with friends and family. We hope you ate lots of turkey, smashed potatoes, and are currently relaxin on the couch watchin football and thinking about if you can fit another piece of pie into you! We are thankful for our miracle baby Bree, and for all of our family and friends. Even the friends we have never met, but who follow our story we are appreciative of! I think it is so cool that we have people from Australia, Washington, Maine and all over that read our story. I think it would be really cool if everyone could post where they are from (and their name!) in the form of a comment on here so we could see how many followers we have!

We got the best news ever today! We were told (in the words of the nurse) that "come hell or high water" Bree will be home for Christmas!!!!! Exciting exciting exciting!!! Today, she is 4 pounds, 3 ounces. She was moved to a big girl bed again, and is down to .2 liters of oxygen at 50%. She is doing great!!! She is doing so awesome with her feeds on the bottle that they might be moving her to eating 2 of every 3 feeds out of a bottle. We are so happy and excited about all of this great news today!

We hope this finds everyone happy, healthy, and in love with life!

November 26, 2008

Good evening!

We didn't get a chance to go see Bree today, but I did call and get an update on her. I was told by her nurse today, Fran, that Bree is a pleasure to take care of, and is oh-so-cute! (I agree!) She ate both of her feedings from her bottle in about 10-15 minutes each. She has been weaned down to .3 liters for oxygen.

Today we had a late morning at the house, and then we all went out to Uncle Ricks (except for Adam who was at work) to hang and have some dinner. We even made a short trip to Devin and Jason's house to see how it was all set up. Devin is nine months pregnant and is in the last few days of her pregnancy. She is having contractions and hopes that Baby Wyatt will stay in for a few more days so that she can get Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping out of the way!

A little funny story tonight about Riley: She is really wanting to drink out of the cups that we have. So, tonight I grabbed a plastic shot glass for her to have for her own. At first, we gave her a bit of Diet Mountain Dew in her "cup". She did great with it! I didn't want her to have too much of the soda, so I went and got some water that we could pour into her "cup" for her. She was drinking from it pretty well, and she even was so nice that she wanted to share with her Auntie. She took her full little shot glass and quickly thrust her arm in the direction of Auntie. This proceeded to throw the water all over her Auntie!! Too funny!

Also, here's the picture from Santa...she wasn't too happy about it!

Hope this finds everyone happy, healthy, and in love with life!

November 25, 2008

Good evening!

The day started off with a visit to Bree. She is doin great as you can see! When the picture was taken, she was getting all ready for her bath...She is now 4 lbs, 1 oz, and is up to 33 cc's a feeding, which is supplemented so that it is 36 calories per feeding. Her ROP results were left for me, and it has not gone down, but it has shown no increase or change at all. No news is good news!

Today she enjoyed her bath, but it wore her out so much that she wasn't able to nipple her feeding. So she got to try, but when she wasn't interested it got put onto her pump to go through her feeding tube. Wehn we left, she was snug as a bug in a rug. She was swaddled, and put back into her isolette.

With the family, we took a little trip this afternoon and ran a few errands. After a few quick stops we stopped at the "air park" located on base. We played around, took some pictures, and Riley had a great time! She enjoyed crawling back and forth over the brick border that was lining the area. (Kids play with the wierdest things!) Here is a snapshot my stepmom she took as us kiddos were headed back to the car.

Hope this finds everyone happy, healthy and in love with life!

November 24, 2008

FOUR POUNDS!!!!!! Woooooooooooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!What a big girl. She broke the four pound mark last night! She is actually exactly four pounds today.

Another exciting event that happened yesterday was that she had another eye exam. Now, the nurses don't tell me the results for some reason(it is left for me to decipher in the form of a note from the opthamologist), but they do tell me when the next one is scheduled. The farther apart they are, the better her eyes are. When her ROP went to a stage two she was having them every week. She had one yesterday, and the next one is not next week, but the week after! That means that it is getting better!!! Yee haw!

Her feeds are up to 33 cc's a feeding (which it will probably go up once they calculate her weight increase), and she is still nippling every other. Drinking from a bottle really wears her out, so that's all she can handle right now. However, it is so so exciting that she is now slightly reaching the milestones that we have been being told about for the past two months. (Drinking from a bottle, reaching four pounds, etc)

Her oxygen is still on, and it is at .4 liters and 35% oxygen. However, every little bit is a step forward and a celebration within itself! Today, we are taking Riley to see Santa, hopefully it doesn't end in tears! She has started to have some of the stranger anxiety so we'll see how it goes!

November 23, 2008

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!!! Okay, so it is really not turkey day for the nation, but for our family it was. My step mom, brother and sister are actually leaving on Thanksgiving so we had ours today. It was great! Deep fried turkey (kudos to Adam), mashed taters, sweet potatoes, green beans, steamed carrots, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and of course gravy! Mmmmm Mmmmm good! Riley even enjoyed it. :) Best of all though, is the time spent with family. The laughter over stupid jokes, the retelling of old stories from back in the day, and making new memories as well!

My sister and I are headed out to see the movie Twilight, and the boys and Mindy (Riley too!) are staying home and just hanging. Bree is hanging at the hospital (of course) and is doing great today! Well, we need to head off to our movie...and when we get home I think a piece of pumpkin pie will be calling my name...with cool whip of course!

Hope this finds everyone happy, healthy, and in love with life!