12 hour update

I wanted to give a quick update on how my day is going so far. I've been here since 8AM, and I've only fed her twice! It's almost 3PM!! She did WONDERFUL with both feedings so far. At 8, she was starving, ate 60ml (all she needed to get was 48ml) and slept right up until noon! Then I fed her at noon, and she took 53ml! Now she's asleep and I'm just waiting for her to wake up. We are going on 3 hours and she's still sleeping. So far so good! We will see what the next hour brings but I'm hopeful! :) And I'm hoping she'll gain mega weight tonight! I know she's burning more calories with all these back to back feedings but I can hope!

AND it's fajita night in the cafeteria and they have amazing fajitas.. Actually.. they have amazing fajitas according to Clint and my Mom because while I was in the hospital, one night my Mom went and brought back her and Clint dinner and that's what it was. I was still on a "soft foods only" diet and I couldn't have any. :( So I'm excited for tonight! AAAND, we will be going to a movie tonight as we may not get the chance here soon.. And maybe tomorrow night. :)

Feels kinda weird.. especially without a baby

Look at what I brought to the hospital today! :) We won't do the car seat test just yet.. maybe in a day or two. BUT STILL.

It all happens so fast!

Oy.. I have so much to report!! It has been a crazy 2 days here at the hospital.. I guess not crazy. oh well.. ANYWAY. Yesterday for her 8AM feeding, she did awesome! She took her entire feeding and we didn't need to give her any extra! I was super excited! I figured she'd be tired for her 2PM feeding but she did alright. She took about half so I was happy. THEN.. for the 8PM feeding.. she took 1 1/2 times her normal feeding amount!!! She was really hungry. Then.. the nurse fed her a bottle for the 2AM feeding and she took the WHOLE THING!!! So when I came today, I had pretty high expectations. 8AM - full feeding. 2PM - full feeding. 8PM - FULL FEEDING! So because she ROCKED it.. the nurse suggested we do breastfeeding back to back. So 8PM AND 11PM. Mostly to see how she does and if she does well, we will do a 12 hour on demand feeding tomorrow. That means, I come in at 8AM and stay until 8PM and feed her when she wakes up and is hungry. It's going to be a long day but I'm excited.

So right now, Clint and I are sitting in the waiting room watching the basketball game while we wait for 11:00 to come. I'm sure she'll do well because she's had 7 successful feedings IN A ROW. Sorry for all the CAPS. I'm feeling very expressive right now.. if I were telling you this story in person, there would be a lot of hand flailing! I'm very excited!!

SO. After this 12 hour on demand feeding tomorrow, assuming she does well, we go to 24 hour on demand feeding (possibly Friday or Saturday) and assuming she does well with that, we ROOM IN with her.. like she is actually in the room with us and we take care of her as if we were at home (possibly Saturday or Sunday) and if she does well with that... WE. GO. HOME. Possibly Sunday or Monday. I. AM. FREAKING. OUT. This is all assuming she does well.

SO, I'm anticipating at least a week from Friday to a week from Sunday. I don't want to get too excited about this. I think we are still waiting for the ok from Ms. OT to clear us on bottle feeding and she doesn't come back from vacation until next Wednesday.

BUT, the eye doctor came today (and all of the above is based on what he says about her eyes today..). HE SAID.. that her eyes look the same. If not the same, BETTER. That's right, BETTER. Word for word, he said to me, "We will probably be seeing you next week in the OFFICE." That means as an OUTPATIENT. I know right??? I will be going from my house, with her, to the eye doctor. CRAZY. I still can't seem to wrap my head around this. Every nurse that comes by (of course knows who we are...) and says "How's Darbi these days??" and with a huge smile on my face, I blabber on about how AMAZING she is. It's too hard not to brag...

So today, after her 2PM feeding, the Nurse Practitioner (Wendy) came in to do her rounds on Darbi and I could hear her outside of the curtain asking the nurse about me and Darbi and saying that she hasn't seen Darbi before. She came in and the picture of Darbi dressed as a princess was hanging on the wall and next to it, it said "Darbi at three months". She was confused because she left on January 19th to take her maternity leave which means that she would have been around when Darbi was born (January 1st) which means she would have seen her. SO, she was asking me about which bed space was Darbi's when she was born. I started to explain a little bit and I could see the light click on in her dead. Wide eyed, she looked at me and slowly asked, "Is this the same baby who had her esophogus punctured?" I proudly responded "YES!!" She said that she was there the day it happened and was actually watching the procedure and saw the minute they had punctured it. She said she remembered it because it was such a horrible day. She remembered thinking that this little baby was going to be sent to Primary and she knew she would not see her again because she would probably not make it. She could not believe that this was the same baby!! It made her day and gave her chills when I told her about how when Darbi got to Primary, the hole had healed itself (after one extremely spiritual blessing given by Clint). Darbi really is our little miracle.

So tomorrow, I will be hanging out with the Darbster all day and watching a lot of King of the Hill on my lappy, and also taking my CPR infant training course from my nurse. SO exciting!!

She has HAIR!!

When she's far away you can't tell still.. BUT in the right lighting.. from the right angle.. SHE HAS HAIR!!!

Shower #3

My Grandma Linda and my Mom got together to throw me one final shower before Darbi comes home. We had it on my due date (in hopes that she would be there... to look at from a distance). We had a really good turnout and it was a lot of fun to get together with all of my Mom's extended family. It's only every few years that I get to see these women and it's fun to hear them talk about the good old days when they grew up with my Mom and all the fun memories they have of my Great Grandma Pearl. We had a fruit tray, a veggie tray, salsa (super yummy.. it had 5 ingredients and salad dressing was one of them!!), chicken salad sandwiches (my most FAVORITE thing!!), and carrot cake! I got so much stuff to help us with Darbi; TONS of clothes, a bathtub (we don't have a tub in our house so this was perfect!), and our stroller!! I think we're almost ready to bring her home! Just a few more small things and we're all set! I'm getting so excited! I haven't gotten the pictures from my grandma's camera yet so here's what I have.

Being 40 Weeks

It's weird to imagine myself pregnant still. With my due date being yesterday, I've imagined time and time again what it would be like to be one of those women who are pregnant and expecting right around finals. Although I'm not in school anymore, Clint is and we were prepared to tell all of his professors that I would possibly be going into labor during finals week. Just so that we were all on the same page. This was all last October when we talked about how we would deal with expecting a baby in April. It seems like so long ago. We've come so far and it seems like we've never not had Darbi to think about and visit at the hospital.

I was holding Darbi tonight after her feeding and looking at how far we've come and how big she is now and I cannot even fathom pushing her out of me!! OUCH. I admire those women who give birth to 10 pound babies. WOW. Clint was almost a 10 pound baby and if Darbi made it full term, she could have easily been huge. I guess it's a blessing... a bittersweet one. The more I think about it though, I am so grateful that Darbi came early with as little complications as we have had. I have had the chance to really get to know her and Clint has also had that chance. It's something we can both share. We get to stare into her beautiful eyes every night and tell her how special she is and how much we love her. I know that there is that bonding experience that happens in the womb in those later weeks that I will never have with her but I wouldn't change it for anything. She is such a special little girl who has taught us so much and I am so thankful for her.

40 weeks TODAY

How do I look?? :) Today was Darbi's original due date! From here on out, she will now have an adjusted age which is in reference to her original due date and we will be measuring her development from that point. Baby shower pictures to come later tonight!

Darbi's first bottle

Today we skipped our 3rd breastfeeding session to try a bottle. Ms. OT wanted Clint to give it to her so my Mom and Grandma met us there to document it all! Get ready to roll your eyes.. because yes. My daughter is amazing. We all know it. It's hard not to get a big head about it! I'm sorry. She ROCKED the bottle. The bottle had 50cc's in it and she ate 40 of them! We considered that her entire feeding and called it a night. We didn't have to give any through her NG tube. We used a nipple that has a lower flow (smaller hole) so that it didn't choke her. The milk comes through easier in a bottle than it does through me when I breastfeed. She doesn't have to work as hard. I think she only choked twice but we handled it nicely and I don't think we will have any major problems with it! Tomorrow we will try again. So it's breastfeeding at 8:00 AM and PM and bottle feeding at 11:00 PM. We are skipping the 2:00 PM feeding because my Grandma and Mom are throwing me a shower! It's still weird to go and not have a baby and not be pregant but I, at least, have real pictures of my baby at my shower's where everyone else doesn't have that. So it's alright.

Sorry the pictures are blurry again. The lighting is really bad when they pull the curtain around us so it's the best I could do.

Times her birthweight by 5

We have finally hit 5 pounds!! And just barely too. She is 5 pounds .5 ounces. I was brave today and asked one of our favorite nurses (who was charging today) when to expect Darbi coming home. I was thinking maybe 2 weeks? She said to plan on 4, at least. :( That way, if she comes home in 3 1/2 weeks we'll be happy. I was kinda bummed. That means we're into Memorial Day almost and I was sure she'd be home long before then. But, good news, we start bottle feeding tomorrow!! That means she's doing well enough with breastfeeding that it shouldn't confuse her to try a bottle. We will do it tomorrow night at 8:00 and Clint's going to give it to her. He will be doing most of the bottle feeding as I've got the breastfeeding thing down. They eye doctor came yesterday and said that he sees a spot on her right eye that has him concerned it may be turning into Plus Disease but not concerned enough to do surgery so the next check will likely be next Wednesday. I had the nurse tonight take a picture of me and Darbi with my camera phone because my camera battery was dead.. Happy 5 pounds Darbi!!

Smiles for everyone

In a crib FINALLY

Day 110 and we're in a crib! She's doing really well in it too. No fussing or anything and they have her laying on a Boppy to help with the acid reflux. Tonight or tomorrow night she is supposed to have a PCG5 test which will test 5 different things to make everything is doing alright. It tests her acid reflux, and also something to do with Central Apnea. Those are the 2 major things.. but I can't remember the rest. This is one of the last things we need to do before we come home.. also on the list is a CPR class, the Car Seat test, another hearing test, and... I can't remember.



BUT we've got a lot done! The feeding thing is posing problems though. Sunday, we went to 3 times a day feeding. Sunday morning, mom and I came at 8 and she slept through the whole feeding. ARGH. Oh well I said.. We'll do better at 5 and 11.. Did we? Well not for the 5:00 feeding. 11:00 went alright. So today I got up and went in at 8:00 am again.. SHE SLEPT. 2:00 - SHE SLEPT. 8:00 - SHE SLEPT!!!!! Really?? What's going on? I asked the nurse and she said that she isn't sick so they are thinking it might possibly be a growth spurt. Most babies eat more through a growth spurt but sometimes special NICU babies tend to sleep more.

Her hemoglobin levels have been a little bit low lately so that can also cause her to be more tired than normal. The nurse said that the doctor will probably increase the amount of iron she gets and that will hopefully help. I'm wondering if she is just backwards on her schedule; asleep during the day, awake at night. I'll just keep at the schedule I've got going and hopefully she will turn herself around.

And.. eye appointment tomorrow (or Wednesday... who knows, maybe Thursday).

OHHH!! Clint surprised me with a fun present today! :) He told me that since we found out we were pregnant, he's been putting a little bit of money away to save up for a "thank you for having my baby" present and when we had Darbi early, that got put on hold. He remembered the other day and knew I'd been eyeing this diaper bag for a little while.. He surprised me with it today!! I LOVE it!! It hooks right on to the stroller and it even matches the stroller! Thanks hun!

It's the green/brown one. Not the polka dotty one.

Daddy's Ring PART 2

We'll take more soon and ignore some of the blurriness but I had to post this.

This picture is when Darbi was about 3 1/2 weeks old and weighed about 1 pound 5 ounces. Clint's ring was able to fit all the way up her thigh even though the picture only shows it up to her knee.


These two pictures were taken on Saturday (3 1/2 months) and she weighed 4 pounds 14 ounces. We've come a long way. Clint's ring won't even fit around her foot!