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!