"Mommy and Daddy got to dress me today!"

They are going to start adjusting the temperature in her incubator to get her ready for room air. This means she will start wearing clothes. This is just another step towards coming home.

4 lbs!!!!

We've reached a milestone, Adelyn now weighs 4 lbs and 1/2 oz! A very exciting moment for us. She's doing wonderful and we look forward to her continued growth and forward progress.

Adelyn gets cuter every day! It was hard to pick which photos to post :) She did great again with the bottle, and they are now going to try it twice each day. Hopefully she'll catch on real quick and we can get that feeding tube out! She's been having a few of the "sleeping apenea" episodes here and there, but again this is a typical preemie thing that she will eventually grow out of.

It's been a few days since my last post . . . Bill banned me from the computer. Apparently I have been overdoing it a bit and he was happy when the doctor agreed and I got to tell him he was right :) All in all I'm doing well, just trying to rest more which isn't easy for me to do!
Adelyn is doing fabulous! We were excited when we went to see her today and she no longer has an IV. She is up to 35 cc's of breast milk and as of last night she weighed 3 lbs. 15 oz. - almost 4 lbs!!

Yesterday they decided to introduce a bottle once per day. She was a little too sleepy to give it a good try last night, but tonight she did great! She drank 15 cc's! We were so proud of her. It takes awhile for a preemie to learn how to suck, swallow and breath all at the same time.

What another awesome visit we had today with Adelyn. I got to hold her "skin to skin" and it felt great! She was so relaxed, her breathing was the best we have seen it. Obviously I was pretty relaxed too :) They increased her feeds to 20 cc's every 3 hours. She had an uneventful night last night and day today. We are pleased with uneventful!

Moving on up . . .

Great news, Adelyn moved from the 1st floor NICU to the 3rd floor NICU tonight. That is a good thing, since the 3rd floor NICU is for less critical babies. She now shares a room with 3 other babies, instead of 9 other babies. We were also very excited when we first saw her today and noticed that the vapotherm oxygen was gone. No more tubes up her nose and taped to her cheeks! They increased her feeds to 15 cc's every 3 hours. She looks great and is cuter today than yesterday :)

The heart echo showed that the PDA opening has not closed. They will check it again next week.
She was cracking us up tonight, she must have been having some good dreams because she was smiling like crazy. Of course, they say that babies that young don't really smile, but we sure think those were smiles :)

June 22

Adelyn is doing awesome! Her breast milk intake is now at 12 cc's every 3 hours! Last night she weighed in at 3 lbs 12 oz, that's only 1 oz shy of her original birth weight. She looks great and we can't help but be optimistic that she will get to go home before her original due date of August 14. I was able to hold her again yesterday :)

She gets cuter every day!
After getting her dinner, she passed right out!

Another great day . . .

We had a wonderful visit with Adelyn today. They took off her UV eye protectors, so we got to see her pretty little face. Daddy got an early Father's Day gift, and was able to hold his daughter for the first time. It was so awesome for me to see the adoring look on his face. She's doing great. They took the breathing tube back out last night. She's back on the vapotherm oxygen support, mainly just for back-up if needed. They increased her feeds from 3 cc's to 6 cc's every 3 hours. We were elated with this news, as this can only mean that she'll gain weight. She is still getting the breast milk through a feeding tube.

We fall more deeply in love with her each day.

One Week Old!

It is hard to believe that it has already been a week since our little girl made her way into this world. She is doing great! She looked so good today. She now weighs 3 lbs. 10 oz, so she is almost back to her original birth weight. I got to help "feed" her by putting breast milk into her feeding tube. They are hoping to remove the breathing tube again tomorrow and put her back on the vapo therm oxygen.

The PDA valve of her heart hasn't completely closed as it should with a full term baby. The opening got a little bigger since her episode Wednesday night with the PICC line complication. This is due to the added fluid. They are giving her Lasix to try to get the fluid out of her body. If that doesn't do the trick, then there are other medications they will try in order to get the opening to close. If that doesn't work, they will need to do a surgical procedure to clamp it shut. They said it is very rare that we will need to resort to surgery. So, say a little prayer that we can fix this without surgery.

I already miss her and can't wait to see her again tomorrow.

Day 6

We had a great visit with Adelyn today. She's doing so much better than yesterday. They decided to leave the breathing tube in for at least another day. They may take it out again tomorrow. She was getting a little fussy, and as soon as Daddy would "hold" her in the incubator, she would calm right down. It was very sweet.

We had a little bit of a set back yesterday. Before I explain, just know that she’s doing very well this morning. When we got to the hospital yesterday the nurses were trying to calm her down because she was a little upset for some reason. She was working hard to breathe, so they increased her oxygen to try to give her some added support. It didn’t seem to help, so they had to bag her and put her breathing tube back in. I can’t even begin to tell you how traumatic it was for me to watch this. I didn’t know what was happening. They took Bill and I to a private waiting room, and Bill was so great and helped me to calm down. When we went back to see her she looked so much better, her color was back to normal and she looked comfortable. They did some chest x-rays and ultrasound and found that it was the pick line that was causing the problems. They put dye into the line and the x-ray showed that it had perforated. So, they removed the pick line and will have to find another vein to put a new pick line in.

She’s doing very well this morning, she has the breathing tube in, but is breathing room air. They may try to take the breathing tube out and put her back on the vapo therm oxygen. They assured us that all this is very typical for a preemie of her size, and unfortunately we just happened to be there when it happened. Bill reminded me that we need to expect a few bad days here and there, we are obviously going to have ups and downs. She is a fighter, and we know she will continue to get stronger.

Day 5

Adelyn is doing great. She has a feeding tube and is now getting breast milk. This is very exciting for me. I feel like I'm contributing to her getting better. She gets 3 cc's of breast milk every 3 hours. I pump about 8 times a day and they freeze the milk until they give it to her.

She was on the UV blanket again when we got today, so unfortunatly we didn't get a chance to see her pretty little face, but we sat with her for awhile and just watched her sleep and squirm around. No wonder I felt her moving around so much in the womb, she has a hard time sitting still!

Day 4

I was able to hold my daughter today for the first time! It was amazing. She is doing well. Her main issues are related to her being a preemie more so than the CCAM lung mass. So we are very happy, knowing things could be a lot worse. She is still struggling a bit with her breathing, which is typical of a preemie. She gets daily tests ranging from heart echos to x-rays to blood tests in order to be sure everything is progressing in the right direction.

Bill and I are obviously a little prejudice, but we think she is absolutely perfect and beautiful. She takes our breath away every time she opens her eyes.

Day 3

Adelyn is doing great! They took her breathing tube out today. It was great to see her without it. She needs the UV light because she's a little jaundice, but other than that she is really doing very well. She may get her IV out tomororw that is currently giving her nutrition, and instead get a feeding tube put in that will allow her to start taking breast milk. We couldn't be happier with her progress. We still are looking forward to holding her and kissing her . . . soon enough. For now she likes holding Daddy's finger :)

It's a Girl!

My contractions were under control early last evening, so Bill went home to get some rest. The contractions started back up again around midnight and after more meds they once again subsided. They checked to see if I was dilated, and they said my cervix was still closed.

Then a few hours later, the contractions were very intense, very painful, and very frequent. They gave me more meds, but this time, it wasn't working. When they checked me I was fully dilated and the baby was in +2 position. The doctor said, "It's time to deliver this baby" I of course was freaking out because I knew Bill was 40 minutes away. I called and told him to get here as soon as possible, without speeding like a maniac down I75 :) It was too late for any type of pain meds, so I had no choice but to deliver naturally. Not exactly in my plan, but nothing to this point was part of a plan.

I called Bill again in between pushes to see how close he was. This baby was obviously very ready to join the outside world, and she didn't want to wait for Daddy. I called Bill at 4:21 am, and she was born at 5:00 a.m. He missed her arrival by about 3 minutes. When he got into the room, I said, "Hi Daddy, you have a baby girl." She was still in the delivery room, so he got to see her and escort her to the NICU. He was a proud emotional Daddy!

She weighed in at 3 lbs. 13 oz. and measured 16 1/2" long. She has a breathing tube, but she is doing well. We are waiting to get a full report on her progress, development, and obviously the CCAM. I went to see her three times today, and it is so hard to leave each time I visit. I can't wait until we can hold her! Here are some pics I took with my phone. Looks like she might have Daddy's dark curly hair! I love it!

Parenthood lesson #1 - Always expect the unexpected

Well, after the good news on Monday, the last thing we expected happened. My water broke at 5:30 a.m. this morning. At the direction of our high risk OB, we went to Sarasota Memorial to get checked. They confirmed my water broke and my contractions were two minutes apart. They gave me meds to slow them down to five minutes apart. They determined I was not even 1 cm dialated, so they put me on the neonatal ambulance and transported me to Bayfront Medical in St. Pete, which is connected to the All Childrens Hospital here where they have pediatric surgeons that can take care of the baby if and when that is needed.

So, the plan right now, is to keep my contractions under control and try to delay labor. I will be 31 weeks tomorrow, and their goal is to get me to 34 weeks. Since my water broke, there is a high risk of infection if we wait longer than that. Of course a pre-mature baby has its own set of complications and problems, and when you throw the CCAM into the mix, it's a little nerve racking. We really need the right lung (the good lung) to be as developed as possible. I will on bed rest here in the hospital until I have the baby. They have a contact monitor on the baby's heartbeat and my contractions. I also have an IV with antibiodics.

All that's left to do is continue to pray. We are in God's hands now. The baby is still fighting strong and not showing any signs of stress. I guess it is just ready to meet mommy and daddy. I keep telling the little one there is plenty of time for that and to be patient :)

The Power of Prayer

We are very happy to report that the lung mass is smaller!! It is now measuring at 0.88, and the heart is now positioned where it should be. They are estimating the baby to now weigh 3 lbs 13 oz, which is very healthy. We are even taking a mini vacation from ultrasounds. Our next ultrasound will be when we go to Philly on June 23rd. So, we will enjoy the nice break and see what the doctors tell us in Philly. Thank you to everyone for your continued prayers, we are very blessed!

Peek-a-boo!

No changes to report from this morning's ultrasound. We are officially on cruise control. We were able to get some more 3D pictures. Even our tech was amazed when we could see eye movement under the eyelid, it was amazing. The baby must have been dreaming. This picture shows the left eye opening a little, and of course the hand by the mouth. Look at those chubby cheeks! I love it!

We scheduled our appointment to go back to Philadelphia on 6/23. They will assess the situation and determine if the baby will have breathing problems immediately. If so, then we would go to Philadelphia to deliver the baby and the baby would have the lung mass removed right after birth. If they don’t feel the baby will have breathing problems at birth, then we will deliver in Florida and bring the baby to Philadelphia just over a month old to have the lung mass removed. I’m very much looking forward to this appointment so we at least know where to plan on having the baby. It’s hard to be in limbo . . .

On a separate note, Bill is prepping for his bodybuilding show on Saturday. He looks great, definitely the best he’s ever looked going into a show. I am excited to see how he does!