MAC & Dr's

So if you know me or you have read this blog you know that a couple months ago i spilled soda on my new Macbook and killed it. We took it to Apple and they told me there was nothing they could do. I was so upset because there were pictures of Henry on there that we had not backed up. Fast forward to last week, we finally decided to order a new one. It was delivered yesterday, I was soooo excited. I waited all day to have some free time to open it up. After I put Bella to bed I finally got my chance. I was sitting at the dining room table playing around when Jamie in. He picked up our dead Apple and jokingly said "this one is mine" and then he hit the on button. He jumped back....the thing had turned on! Now, honestly we tried to turn it on 100's of times in the past couple of months, hoping that something like that would happen. It took buying a new one for it to work! LOL We were so happy, everything was still on there, we did not lose any of the photos!! Now Jamie really can have a Mac of his own ;) That's good, because we are not very good at sharing computers!!

HENRY & BELLA AT THE DR'S OFFICE


Henry has been busy with Dr's appts. Last Thursday we went to the Pediatrician for his RSV vaccination, thank God it finally came in. He weighed 8 lbs 9oz. Friday we went to the Retina Specialist, he said his eyes are the same (which is good) and to come back next week. Yesterday he went to the GI specialist, she increased his Prevacid, which will hopefully will help with the reflux. She said it usually takes about 2 weeks for any benefits to really be noticed. She wants us to see a Feeding Specialist/Speech Pathologist. Henry and alot of preemies tend to always be pushing things out of their mouth, so when he is eating a lot of formula is being pushed back out and he is having trouble keeping the binkie in. At that appt he weighted 9 1/2 lbs!!! He is gaining so quickly! I can't imagine what his weight would be if he wasn't puking half of it up ;)

HENRY'S 1ST PEDIATRICIAN APPT




Today we saw a Pulminologist, she said she heard some wheezing but his lungs sounded clear, which is awesome. He has a slight cough as well so she decided to put him back on a Nebulizer. He is having surgery in a couple of weeks for his hernia and she wants him in the best condition possible before then. She said we really need to continue limiting the number of people he is around and those that are must wash their hands every time before they hold him. I think my hands might just shrivel up and fall off soon from all the washing. Although he looks awesome he really still is a sick kid and it's good that someone reminds us of that so we don't get to relaxed in how we handle him.

HENRY AT THE EYE DR'S

No Dr's appointments tomorrow..WOO HOO! Friday we have the eye dr and then we go to Blythdale for his medical evaluation for Early Intervention.

Bella has been amazing through all of this. She really seems to love him...when she is paying attention! She loves to use his swing for her dolls, lol. She is tall enough now that she gets on her tippy toes to look at him in the pack and play..it's too cute. No matter how tired I am she can still get me to laugh, she is hilarious and has so much energy it's amazing. I wish we could put her in some kind of tumbling classes, I think she would LOVE it, but they want us to limit the amount of activity outside the house and interaction she has with other little kids at least until the winter is over. Today my mom and I took her to the mall and let her wander around, she loves her freedom..as Im sure most kids do.

Henry...go to sleep!!

I'm not complaining..how could I? I'm lying in bed while someone else is taking care of my son, but he is crying and I can't fall asleep while he crys. Oh! And now the monitor is going off...he really needs to calm down!

The nursing thing is working out really well. Since Henry has come home from the hospital he has decided the only way he will sleep is if he is on someones chest, so getting any kind of sleep at night is not an option. I was going to have the nursing switched to days next week so I could take bell out and do stuff but if I'm not getting any sleep then we won't be going anywhere anyway, so I called today and made all the shifts night shifts.

It's kind of weird having a stranger in your house. The first night we had a nurse I was sooo excited to finally get sleep. However right before bed I freaked myself out with the whole stranger in my house thing, which then turned into..this woman is going to steal my kids while we sleep!!!! No lie, I'm insane. I sent jamie a text from bed telling him to go write down her license plate!!! And then I sent my sister a text telling her how nuts I was and now I was not going to get the sleep I was desperatly needing! Her reply was a stream of "haha"s followed in the morning by a text asking if she'd taken my kids. LOL

I'm getting over my little issue now and finally starting to get sleep. I need sleep, Henry has 50 million Dr's appointments each week. Ok, so maybe not that many but he does see 6 different drs...how can an 8lb boy have 6 drs?? We found out yesterday he needs hernia surgery. Go figure. We need to wait till he is more stable but not too long as to where the hernia becomes a serious problem. The surgery will be end of Feb beginning of March..and he'll have to spend 24 hours in the hospital..ugh. Oh well, other than that he is doing well. So far his eyes are looking better. We see the Retina Specialist every week for another 10 weeks. His acid reflux is pretty bad, he makes these horrible gagging sounds, looks so painful.

Despite all that crap, he's really cute and loves to cuddle so I'm happy :)
Bella seems happy with him , soon enough they will be playing together!

PTSD

Wow, it went quick but looking back it was long! I can't believe Henry has only been home a little over a week, it feels like he's always been here or more like he was just born. I find it funny to look at him and say he is 4 months old, he's so little he looks like a newborn. The time we spent in the NICU feels like a different lifetime. From the time I got pregnant I dreaded the last trimester, getting huge and uncomortable and not sleeping, all that stuff I was so not looking forward too..i'm sure no one does. Well I did get to avoid that but I had my own kind of hellish third trimester. I've had more than a few people joke with me about how i've 2 kids and managed to avoid stretch marks..while this is true (and I'd be lying if i said i wasn't thrilled about that!!LOL)nothing in life is free. I might have said this before but it's so true that i'll say it again, I have more internal scars than had i gained 100lbs and gone full term with 2 kids. These scars will never go away, but like stretch marks, they will fade.

I actually still get sad when someone in real life or even on TV gets pregnant. I honestly have to remind myself that I have 2 kids and that one of them I actually did carry and give birth too. The pain was with me for so long, that my brain hasn't really totally caught up with reality. Then again my reality is not the norm. I had a baby in Septmeber, I didn't get to hold him until October, didn't give him a bath or bottle until November and did not get to take him home until the last day of Decemeber. I didn't have the beautiful birth experience that I had been so excited for. My brain does not even really comprehend the C section, it was all so crazy, it kind of felt like he was just taken from me in the middle of the night.

Stomach there, stomach gone.

Kind of reminds me of when I lost the baby last year. I had a belly, i went in to surgery came out belly gone, baby gone. And all that happened at Columbia. Henry was born in Westchester but by the end of the day he was at Columbia. So like I've said this week has been full of different emotions.

Someone at Columbia and at Northern Westchester gave us an article that was in the NY Times about the NICU Experience and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I read it and found it interesting but as I was going through the experience I couldn't really understand it, but I think I'm getting it now. When something traumatic is going on in your life your main goal is to survive. Not think, not dwell, not cry just survive. You guard yourself so much because it feels like if you let a little crack start then it's over...you totally fall apart and won't know how to deal with the actual situation. Or atleast that's my interpreation and that's how I felt. I didn't want to talk about anything to do with Henry besides the facts. I told people what was going on and then added, he's fine or he's doing great. When I didn't really know. But i didn't want pity or sadness, it might have killed me. Jamie and I both just felt we needed to be strong and deal with things one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time.

Now the craziness is over, life is quieter...which lets your head wander more. Now I think about all the what if's. And it scares the hell out of me.

Henry still needs a lot of help. He is still on Oxygen, although very low amount, which is awesome. But his eyes are still a small concern, he needs hernia surgery, he will be seeing a GI speicialist, a Pulminary Speciaist, OT, PT and maybe speech.

So I guess we still take it one day at a time. Henry is here, Bella is here and both are amazing. The past 3 years are so insane it makes my head spin and the future is the future so why bother worrying about that. We're doing our best to get used to our new normal and enjoying our family. It's kind of awesome, still can't believe it's real :)

NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/health/25trau.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

After 102 days we are Home Sweet Home :)

Day 1: 2lbs 1oz and 14 inches


Day 102: 7lbs 8oz and 20 inches


So much to say. Our stay at the hospital was filled with so many different emotions. On top of finally getting to spend the night with our son, we had to organize nursing home care, set up the oxygen company, he needed to pass his hearing test and eye exam, get circumsized and say goodbye to the people who had taken such amazing care of him and us. Taking down all the stuff we had hung in his crib was really emotional.
Putting him in the car for the first time and leaving the hospital WITH him, was so amazing...we had talked about this day for months. I still can't quite comprehend I gave birth to a baby in September and took him home on New Years Eve. I think that is starting to hit me now that the craziness is over..it's not that easy to deal with, but he is here and that's the most important thing.
We haven't gotten much sleep since he came home but it's been amazing none the less. Bella is awesome with him, very curious, a few pokes here and nothing crazy. She is really interested in his monitor, every time it beeps she's says "what's that?" (and it beeps ALOT!). He sleeps ok through the night, the monitor is the thing that really keeps me awake...it's attached to his foot, measuring his oxygen saturation levels and every time he moves it freaks out beeping because it can't get a read. I will not miss that thing. Hopefully he does not need it very long.
Having him come home on o2 was very intimidating, and overwhelming but we are getting used to it. We had an infant CPR class at our house this past weekend for us and our parents. Hopefully we never need it, but atleast we all know what to do now.

We are so happy he is home!!! Sometimes I pretend that we was born last week and the previous 3 months never happened...sometimes I succeed in convincing myself if only for a moment :)

Pictures!!

Henry Coming Home!