Handprint Craft

At work, I write all of the instructions for any of the kits we sell and this summer we will be doing Kid's Crafts and this year they are really cute and so clever! Whoever came up with this is so creative!! These are actually Darbi's handprints which I turned into fish! The kit will be available at Pebbles in a few weeks so be on the lookout! There's also a butterfly handprint magnet! They are so small and so cute.. I just love her little hands. I can't imaging turning her handprint from when she was born into a fish.. Impossible!!

Right Now...

- Clint sleeps with no blankets or sheets at all.
- I sleep with one super soft blanket that is even to small for me.. mostly because it's comfy.
- Darbi can keep her binky in for 5 minutes, then spit it out and play with it for 2 minutes, then cries.
- I love to read Ensign talks.
- I have a 42 oz. bag of Peanut M&M's on my nightstand.
- I feel very creative and want to (in the cutest way possible) document every minute of Darbi's life.
- I LOVE butterflies and teal.
- I have to bug to get organized.
- I have a Spiderman costume hanging in my closet and secretly want to put it on and wear it as my pajama's tonight. :)
- I feel very grateful for my family and feel very loved.
- I love my handwriting!
- I need my hair done. The grey's are exploding out of NOWHERE!
- I'm craving any and all dairy.
- I think I have a cavity. :(
- Clint is looking very tan... me likey. :)
- Darbi is in Newborn size diapers.
- I am itching to go swimming.
- I want to move back to P-town (NOT Provo).
- Darbi is asleep... and so is Clint. :)

First time Swinger

We tried Darbi out in her swing today for the first time. It is a loaner and used to be my 12 year old cousin's swing when he was a babe. It was NOT a good experience for her. It took a few minutes and she calmed down and even took a quick 15 minute nap in it. We'll try it again maybe because I really want her to like this thing.

Proof

that it's there...

(you need to click to enlarge.. but it's there!)

7 pounds

We have a 7 pound baby!! She is almost 5 months and 7 times her birth weight! Say that about your baby!! I went into the doctor today because our Home Health Nurse can't come out to the house anymore because our insurance won't pay for it. Bogus but whatev. So I hauled up Darbi by myself and took her in. We also turned down her oxygen need from 1/4 liter to 1/8 liter and she's tolerating it pretty well. Her O2 saturation in the office was 98-99 but when we came home she was really fussy for no reason so I turned her back up to 1/4 for the night. I'll try 1/8 again in the morning. We'll just ween her down slow. The doctor was really pleased with her progress for a 23 weeker. I think he'll say that to me every time we go in because he probably forgets everything about us until he reads her miracle story in her chart. I like when people brag about her so I like to listen to him. :)

Memorial Day Weekend

My Mom & Dad came up from Phoenix for Memorial Day to stay with us and see Darbi last weekend. This was the first time my Dad has ever held her and I think she's got him under her spell. I think he's a fan. :) We also stayed at my Grandma's house Sunday night with Darbi and it was her first time away from home aside from the whole 4 month hospital stay. We practically had to pack up the whole house to make sure we got everything she needed just in case. I don't know what her deal was.. maybe it was because she was getting so much extra attention but both Saturday and Sunday night she was awake the WHOLE night!! I got an hour and a half of sleep both nights! So Monday, when we came back I was SO tired. We got back late because we had a minor car emergency and Clint had to change the oil in the car at like 8:00. Anyway, I was dreading the night because I was so tired. BUT she slept 8 hours and only got up once!! And that one time, she didn't cry when I changed her (she ALWAYS cries when I change her diaper), ate, burped, and went right back to sleep. No problem. It was amazing. I think this weekend wore her out! I was so tired that there was one point in the night when I got up and was sorta sleep walking around the room rambling to Clint about something.. I kept thinking that I was forgetting to do something. I was so loopy and so tired. She had to make up for being so naughty the 2 nights before.

My Sweet Baby

My Mom brought her nice cameras up with her and we were able to finally get some good pictures of Darbi since mine doesn't do so well with the poor lighting in our dark apartment.

Meeting Nana

A few days ago, Clint received a call from his Dad saying that his Mom (Clint's grandma - Nana, Darbi's Great Grandma) wasn't doing so well and we might want to make a trip up to see her so she could meet Darbi. So last night, we packed up Darbi, in all her cord glory, and made our way up to North Ogden. She slept the whole ride up which was good because we had Kade (Clint's little brother) with us and as much as he loves kids, constant baby cries are sometimes too much.

It was so sweet. I asked Nana if she wanted to hold her and she was like "She's so tiny! I can't!" I made her anyway. I needed the picture!! :) So I layed Darbi in her arms and Nana LOVED her! Nana started to cry. It was the sweetest thing. Darbi got a little fussy so I took her back but sat on the floor next to Nana for the rest of the evening so she could get a good look at Big D. She just kept saying how sweet and cute she was and how what a good mommy she had (me - hee hee) and kept wiping the tears away. I am so glad we were able to go up and they could meet each other.

Nana is 92 and sometimes isn't as sharp as she used to be but she seemed to be doing pretty alright while we were there. We told her a couple of times that Darbi only weighed a pound when she was born but it never really sunk in I think. About halfway through the evening, she asked me how old she was. I told her Darbi was 5 months and her jaw dropped!! It was so funny! She could not believe it!



She mostly has it together, but every now and then, she can get a little crazy. :) I remember one time, about a year or 2 ago when Dave (Clint's Dad) was getting ready to move into the house they are in now. Clint and Dave were down in the basement getting ready to move some of the big furniture out while I was in the living room with Nana packing up some of the more delicate decorations. They had a ton of paintings hanging on the wall (asian themed) and there was one in particular that Nana wanted to tell me about.

Nana: "You see that painting of the tiger up on the wall there?"
Me: "Yeah Nana?"
Nana: "I painted that."
Me: "Wow, it's really pretty"

Here's where it gets good...

Nana: "I was 9"
Me: "WOW. You are very talented!"
Nana: "While I was painting it, there were these people standing off to the side.. They are outside of the painting so you can't see them. They were taunting the tiger so he would make that growling face!"
Me: "You must have been very scared!"
Nana: "No, there were people there to make sure he didn't attack us."

She did not paint the picture of the tiger but everytime I see that painting, it makes me smile and I'm glad that I now have a special memory of Nana that no one else has. I still need to take a picture of that painting so I remember what it looks like. On the car ride home, Clint and Kade kept telling funny stories that they remembered about Nana. I wish I could have know her a little better because she seems like a very unique woman and I am glad Darbi was able to meet her.

Crazy Sleeper

I love this

Great Grandma's house - a first for Miss Darbi

Sunday was our first trip out of the house with Darbi OTHER than to the doctor. She did really well with the drive up to Sandy and LOVES the riding in the car. We borrowed Clint's mom's car because ours doesn't have AC. :( It's kind of a hassle with all of her equipment but it's so nice to get a break from my little 12x12 bunker. Suddenly Summer popped out of NOWHERE for me! The weekend Darbi came home and the week and a half following that, I was either cooped up in the hospital or in our sunlight-less basement apartment. Summer in Utah is so pretty and so green!! I want to be outside all the time!

Sleeping Beauty

Her sleep patterns are starting to make me nervous. The doctor's have told me to not let her go longer than 4 hours between feedings. I'm assuming because she is so small and needs as many possible calories in a 24 hour period as she can get. On Thursday night, she went 5 hours between a feeding because she was so tired! I was super excited and not-at-all worried because I figured that a little treat like that (more mommy-sleep-time) is good for me every now and then and probably ok for her. SO, Friday was not a good sleep night for her and I took many naps yesterday to play catch up. That's normal for us so I figured we were back on our mommy-gets-no-sleep-schedule. No big. Last night, I put her down around midnight and she didn't wake up until 5! Awesome, I thought. So I made sure to set my phone alarm for 8 because I didn't want her sleeping forever again. I guess I turned my alarm off because here I go waking up at 9:45!!!! And not because I hear baby cries.. it's because there's sun in my face. SHE wasn't even awake!! I had to actually wake her up. I'm kinda nervous now though. I'm secretly hoping she wants to eat every 2 hours now to make up for that. I've watched other mom's of super-cute-babies go through the finally-sleeping-through-the-night-phase and figured that my time would come but not until like November or something. ACK. I hope she keeps growing! I know she needs sleep to grow but having a NICU baby taints everything you think you know about having a regular baby!! I question EVERYTHING now. So Clint gave her a fortified bottle at 10 and it's 10:45 and she's passed out again in my lap. I guess I need to take advantage of this but I do feel extraordinarily rested..

Snuggle time with Uncle Jed

Today was co-op day again!! There are 5 sites now and it takes 2 trucks to get all the produce delivered now. All of the drops are still up in the Ogden/Brigham City areas so it's still a bit of a drive but worth it in my opinion. From what I remember (last night was a long one with Big D and my memory is a little hazy from today..) we got apples, oranges, pears, a ton of bananas, red bell peppers, spaghetti squash, honeydew, green leaf lettuce, cucumbers, mangos (the good kind! Ataulfos..) and broccoli.. and maybe something else. I forget. My brother drove one of the trucks up and is staying with us for the weekend. I love when people come to stay with us! It's like the holidays or something.. or vacation. It's just fun.

The only sweet spot

6 pounds of absolute cuteness gets heavy pretty quickly around here.

It's really time for me to get out..

Today I spent the entire day cooped up in the house. UGH. I feel yucky. I think Darbi feels it too because she was SO fussy today! I didn't get anything done and I have a HUGE backache because she did not want to be put down. I think I need to get a baby sling for days like these. I'm not a big fan because I think that babies and mommies need time away from each other but this little one is too hard to say no to! I think I will try and venture out of the house on my own with her tomorrow. It's hard because I'm worried that if something goes off with her O2 tank, I can't get back to the house very fast. I could take a back up though..

My grandma came down yesterday and took Darbi and I to the eye doctor for our weekly Wednesday eye appointment. Once again, to no surprise, the Dr. was very pleased her eyes. She is still in Zone 2 but now she's mild Stage 2 on her ROP.

She's started to be VERY very spitty. It's so bad that it sounds like she's got a stuffy nose and can't breathe! It keeps me up every night because I think she's choking or that she's about to wake up. She blows bubbles and everything! I think she's kind of ahead developmentally here. From what I've read, most babies start doing this around 1 or 2 months. Adjusted, she's about 2 1/2 weeks. She's had so much practice with all the tubes in her mouth for the last few months that she already has become familiar with what she's supposed to do with her mouth. Blowing bubbles and making noises is one of the very first steps to talking. Now she won't be talking in a week but I'm imagining it will be earlier... for her at least.

Sorry no pictures today. The lighting in my house isn't very good and they all turn out pretty yellow. Maybe on the walk tomorrow I can get some good ones.

Nobody likes getting shots

It's immunization day. Doesn't that picture just break your heart? She's asleep on my chest right now but every 15 minutes or so, she wakes up with an outburst of painful cries. We gave her some Tylenol but she's still upset. We had our first well check appointment today and she weighed in at 6 pounds 1.5 ounces! That means she has gained half a pound in a week! That's a little over an ounce a day! They really do start doing better when they come home! She's still small. For her age, she is under the 3rd percentile for height and weight. We are on our way though!

Right now, Darbi is still on 1/4 Liter of O2 and in 2 weeks, our doctor wants to turn her down to 1/8. If she does well with that, we go to 1/16, then to 1/32, then to only oxygen while she's eating... and then NO oxygen. We're on our way in that department too. The doctor said she's looking really good and is very impressed with how she's doing considering she's our special little 23 weeker. We see him again in 1 month if all goes well!

Today was the first day I have officially gotten ready (like completely done up hair and make up). It feels good. I've kept myself pretty cooped up in our bedroom most of the time because Darbi's heart monitor and extremely long O2 cable has to go with her everywhere. We can't have that cable getting kinked so she and I stay in our room together. I think I may venture into the 2nd bedroom tomorrow while she's napping to get some things organized.. We'll see.

Clint and I spent his birthday and Mother's Day getting caught up on Chuck. Now I'm having Chuck withdrawls! NBC is thinking about pulling the plug for next season on Chuck and Clint and I are super bummed! We need some outside time though so a summer break from all our shows will be good. Being cooped up like this has us both going a little stir crazy.

I'm likin' this holiday..

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mother's out there! I feel like I have been inducted into a not-so-secret club that gets special phone calls and texts for having done the hardest job EVER. I like it! All this hard work really does pay off! :)

Thanks Mom for everything you do for me, Clint, and Darbi! You are the smartest woman I know and without you, I would not be the Mom I am today.. :)

Possible clown phobia??

Darbi's first time with her newborn toys.. I hope they haven't traumatized her too much.. I'm imagining a clown phobia in the near future.

Happy Birthday Clint!

For the last year, Clint has had an envelope labeled "Clint's XBox 360 fund". For this birthday last year and this year, AND Christmas, all he has asked for is Best Buy Gift Cards. With this last birthday, he finally had enough and went and picked it up today.. My #1 babysitter has been stolen from me. :( It's ok though.. I have my scrapbooking and he has his geek box. :)

Happy birthday Clint!!

Life after the NICU

Let me just start out this post by saying YOU DO NOT KNOW TIRED UNTIL YOU HAVE HAD CHILDREN. You may think you know tired. YOU. DO. NOT. I don’t care what anyone says. WOW. These last few days have been surreal. I think everything feels normal. That I’m a Mom. I have a baby. WE have a baby and she’s sleeping right over there. And that’s where I start freaking out. We have a baby!! Anyway. The last few days have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me. I should have been through this all when we had her but now that she’s home, it’s a different story. She is the most adorable little girl! Basically, my days consist of NOT sleeping when I should be sleeping, feeding her (she has kind of made me a little schedule), and sitting around holding her. She loves to be held. She won’t let me put her down, which is strange because she was not held this much AT ALL in the NICU. It’s nice because I love holding her every minute of every day (Clint too..) but we don’t sleep. Simple as that.

Sunday = Rooming In

I posted a little bit on this day but I never got around to posting how I felt after it was all over. I heard every little squeak and squirm and little cry that came from her crib. She’s a grunter and I didn’t realize this until Monday morning. I got an hour and a half of sleep that night. Clint got a little bit more than I but we were both pretty much running on empty come Monday morning. During the day on Sunday, the Praxair man came to the hospital to teach us how to use the home heart monitor and the oxygen tanks. This is where I started freaking out. This machine scared me TO DEATH. I was so afraid I would bump something and every light and buzzer would sound and something bad would happen with Darbi because of my clumsiness. Of course, that’s not the case and I LOVE that we have the monitor and that she’s on a bit of extra oxygen. One nurse explained it to us in that if something bad were to happen; 1) We would know about it already because of the monitor and 2) we don’t have to wait for the paramedics to get here to administer the oxygen because we already have it! If she’s not doing so well and her skin coloring is a little off, we turn up the O2 and she’s better. Very reassuring. AND on those nights where she is sleeping so soundly that I’m wondering whether or not she is really sleeping, I just have to look at the monitor and I know we’re good. I don’t rely solely on the monitor but it is nice to have it around.

Monday morning

We started the day with our nurse and Darbi’s Pediatrician coming in to discuss the plan for the day. We cleaned up our room, took Darbi back to the nursery, and went to lunch with my Grandma. We came back from lunch and I went to get Darbi dressed in her super cute “coming home” outfit and she was too big for it!! I was so sad but ecstatic at the same time!! I had nothing else to put her in so we had to leave in a NICU onesie. :( She did have the socks on that I brought, just no pants. Oh well. After we had packed everything up, we took our final walk through the NICU. Our nurse walked us back through the entire thing to say goodbye to everyone. It was really sad! Plus a lot of our favorite nurses were not there that day..

And the drive home was so scary! I noticed every dumb thing that everyone did on the road. I just wished they all would keep like a 30 foot distance! Anyway, that night went fairly well.. I was an emotional wreck because it all finally hit me that Clint and I are the only ones who are here in case anything happens and I was SCARED TO DEATH! On top of only getting a touch of sleep, it only added to the drama.

Tuesday was pretty much the same. We just layed around the house waiting for her to wake up so we could play with her.. and sleeping as much as we could.

Wednesday = Doctor appointment day

We started out the day heading BACK to the hospital for her Audiology test. She failed her first hearing test (which is common) so we went back for another go. She failed again. But, not to worry.. the nurse checked for fluid in her ears and she said that’s probably all it is. We have another check in a month. It really wasn’t so weird to go back to the hospital. It was weird, however, to push a stroller around the hospital! It took us about 40 minutes just to make the 15 minute drive to the hospital! I kept forgetting things.

After the Audiology appointment, we walked over to where Darbi’s eye doctor’s office is. It’s about a quarter mile away. I stepped out while they were doing the procedure but when I came back in the Doctor was pleasantly surprised! He said…. probably… most likely… NO. SURGERY. It is unbelievable for a 23-weeker to not need eye surgery. We have another appointment in a week but he said the ROP is regressing while the eyes are progressing in a positive way! I know they say this every week that she may not need surgery but he was very very confident that there would be no need!!!

Starting Tuesday night, Darbi has had an upset, gassy tummy and we didn’t think too much about it. Then, she started to have runnier (is that a word?) stool. So we got a little worried and called our Pediatrician. They had us come down Wednesday afternoon to just check her weight to see if she was gaining (5 pounds 11 ounces now!) and we have to take down a stool specimen to the labs for testing. She’s probably alright but Clint and I won’t let anything get passed us.

So, now I’m trying to get back into a routine with her. It’s hard with no sleep of course but it’s easier to stay in my pajamas and not go to the hospital 3 times a day. :)

We are loving EVERY MINUTE of her being home with us!!

Thanks for the happy welcome home Ashley & Adrienne!!

On our way home from the hospital

Hanging out on Mom & Dad's bed

Darbi's first bath at home

After...

Coming 16 1/2 weeks early,
gaining 5+ pounds,
countless IV's,
numerous PICC lines,
2 brain bleeds,
chronic lung disease,
1 esophageal perforation
2 PDA ligations,
10+ eye exams,
4 different breathing machines,
1 trip to Primary,
24/7 pumping sessions,
many, many, AMAZING nurses (and doctors),
bottles, boobs, and stinky diapers
and
124 days in the NICU...

Darbi has come home.

Rooming In

As I type this, I am sitting in bed (at the hospital) and Darbi is laying in her crib next to me sleeping! We got here around 8:30 to start and she was STARVING. As soon as we got settled in here, we fed her and she was so gassy! She would not stop crying. I was thinking.. Great.. this is going to be a l-o-n-g night! But she's asleep now and I've got about an hour before I need to feed her again. I hope this goes well. Before we came I was stressing major! It terrifies me to know that it's all us. Yeah the nurses are down the hall tonight.. but not tomorrow night! Oy. So the home health medical supply man came to see us today with Darbi's heart monitor and oxygen tank. I think it was after talking with him and having him teach us everything when I started to kind of freak out. I don't know how you Mom's out there go home after having a full term baby! You get 3 days.. sometimes less with the nurses! I've had 4 months and I'm TERRIFIED!! The monitor has 1 light that blinks for each time her heart beats and 1 light for each breath she takes. If her heart rate goes above 230 or drops below 70, it beeps LOUD or if she doesn't take a breath for 20 seconds... or if the leads are placed wrong. They are only stuck to her with a little jelly and strapped on with a foam velcro strap. They move so easily. We've already had it beep at us 3 times in 2 hours just because they've moved. UGH. And oh I'm tired.. and I don't think I'm going to be not tired for a very long time.

Bountiful Baskets

We got so much food this week! I just had to boast about this...

- tomatoes
- plums
- red leaf lettuce
- spinach leaves
- green grapes
- watermelon
- cantaloupe
- carrots
- apples
- blackberries
- bananas
- broccoflower
- red onions

For $15!!! Can't beat that...

UVRMC = Still Awesome!!

Another reason why I am sad to leave the NICU:

Her feet are GI-normous in this picture!!

Linda, our favorite dress-up playin'-picture takin'-night nurse had a little fun with Darbi the other night for her 4 month birthday! She said that Darbi was pretty good for the spur-of-the-moment photo shoot until the end when she got a little fussy. The only thing that would calm her was her binky.

SUPERGIRL'S ONE WEAKNESS: her Kryptonite Binky!

So much to do!

I have no time to do anything and it's all happening SO FAST!! This discharge thing just creeps up on you!! Today, no surprise, she ROCKED her feedings again. For her 4:30 feeding (Jen you will appreciate this...) she took 78!! 78?!?!?! My chunky monkey likes to eat!! Tomorrow is the 24 hour on demand and then Sunday will be our Room In day. I still have to:

- clean/vacuum the Honda
- sort junk in hallway
- make/write thank you cards
- move crib into bedroom
- buy more soap/Purell
- sort/do laundry
- rearrange bedroom
- put away Darbi's gifts from the showers
- move milk into freezer
- take pictures with our favorite nurses
- clean out the fridge
- clean my house

ACK. No time no time no time!! I'm really not too worried about it though. Once Darbi comes home, I will have all the time to do it.. (when we're not snuggling!) It kind of hit me hard today that we really are leaving! Darbi's Primary day shift nurse, Shelly, doesn't work until later next week so this really is the last time we will see her for a while!! We love Shelly and it will be so weird not going to the NICU every day. If we were still up at PCMC, I could care less about leaving because it's so dang far away. Down here, it really is a second home to us now and we love the people we get to see everyday! Oh I'm getting kind of sad.. We will for sure come back and visit though!!

So Darbi has an umbilical hernia. It's actually kinda funny. Clint hadn't seen it until a few days ago and when we took her pants off to change her diaper he saw it and freaked out!! It's like the movie Alien! They said it will probably need to be surgically fixed down the road but it's nothing to worry about and it may even fix itself in time. It doesn't hurt her at all but it looks so crazy!!

Round 2 - 12 or 24?

After a very successful day of feeding, we will probably go for Round 2 tomorrow. Either a 24-hour on request feeding or another 12-hour. I've got this thing with Bountiful Baskets on Saturday morning. BTW- If you live in UT or AZ you've got to check this out. For $15 ($18 the first time) you get a basket FULL of produce!! It's always a random mix of produce and you really don't know what you are going to get but it's always top quality produce! PLUS the bread?? So good. I swear by it!

Anyway, when the nurse was bathing her tonight around 11, she was sucking on her knuckles way hard (which was right before her feeding). She's SO ready to come home! ACK. My house feels too dirty to have have a baby like her coming home! I need to clean like crazy I think.. Clint and I went to get our fajitas.. and the Grill was closed. :( We were too late. No fajitas. So we went to see Paul Blart at the Dollar Theater. DUMB but dang funny.. That guy in that movie... I forget his name. FU-NNY!!

Clint's birthday is on May 9th and we usually do a movie thing all day at the theaters but this year.. we will be doing things a bit differently. We're thinking of just staying home and watching movies all day (with Darbi!) but we have recently gotten hooked on Chuck. And by recently, I mean we just finished watching the pilot episode... like 5 minutes ago. I think we will be having a Chuck marathon. :) That show is funny! And catchy!