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Ava's New Best Friend!

Here comes another Will update! This time, as you know, we are doing the update from home. Our little buddy has now been home for a week and a half and we are happy to report that it’s been a wonderful and smooth transition. He’s adjusting well to his new home and has developed quite a fan in his big sister, Ava. She wakes up every morning and the first thing she says is "Will." Going in to look at her brother first thing has become her morning ritual.

Our four-legged friends are also getting used to having him around…though they were definitely curious about him at first. As any baby at such an early age, for the most part, all he does is sleep, eat and poop. He eats almost exactly every three hours and likes to keep to a schedule, just like his Mama! He has more than doubled his birth weight, which was 2lbs 12 oz and now weighs 5 lbs 8oz. He is now 18 ½ inches long, compared to the 15 inches he was when he was born. Another exciting milestone is he has upgraded to newborn diapers and no longer needs the preemie size. He’s even growing out some of his preemie outfits! :-)

Some people say, “having one baby is one thing but once you have two, you might as well have five.” We definitely know what they are talking about! Even though we went through this with Ava, we quickly forgot how precious sleep is. It’s safe to say we have been reminded again! Time management is more important than ever and Mike are I are juggling our schedules as best as we can.

We have a few follow-up appointments with different doctors coming up; they are just regular check-ups and nothing out of the ordinary. We will keep you posted on Will’s progress as he continues to impress us every day with his strength.

Thank you for your continued support and well-wishes! Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Will's coming home...

Here are a few pictures from Will's journey home yesterday!

We welcome Will home…….

After 57 days in the NICU, we are thrilled to say that Will will be coming home this afternoon. It is ironic that today is exactly one month to the day before he was supposed to enter this world. Now he’s got a head start and will breathe his first air outside the hospital. We have thought about this day each of the 57 days and it almost feels weird that it is actually upon us.

We have said all along that this has been an emotional rollercoaster and I’m sure today will be no different. We will face an entirely new set of emotions as we make the drive to the hospital that has become our routine. We are obviously excited to bring our little buddy home, but I’m sure more tears will fall as we say thanks and farewell to those at Winnie Palmer and the Alexander Center for Neonatology who have nursed him successfully to this point. There will also be tears of joy as we put him in the car for his first ride and bring him into our home for the first time with his sister. We will also be nervous in the coming days just hoping he’ll be fine.

We along with Will now face the next chapter in the game of life. You never know what it will bring, but as with everything all you can do is be positive, prepare and do the best you can. This I know we will do for Will. Thank you all so much from the bottom of our hearts for all of the love, prayers, well-wishes, inspirational stories, posts, cards, gifts, e-mails and “good lucks” that you have given our family. You will never know how much it has meant. Thanks for sharing YOUR passion!!!! Annika, Mike, Ava, and Will

Will update 5/14/11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are now entering the eighth week of Will being in the NICU department of Winnie Palmer hospital. As we have shared in our weekly updates, it’s been a physical and emotional ride. We have gone from knowing nothing about preemies to knowing more than we ever wanted to know. Our lives have been consumed by grams, milliliters, oxygen saturation and heart beats. I have always liked crunching numbers, but not like this.

 Will is now just over 34 weeks old or nearly 8 weeks outside my stomach. He has   made some remarkable progress and the scale shows us he weighs 5 lbs. All the tubes and wires are gone so we can finally see his facial features. As with any mother you think your baby is the best looking ever!

Our days are now about the feeding and bonding.  We get to hold him and feed him and it is so precious seeing his eyes look up into ours. Though he probably can’t focus yet, we still feel the bond. The diaper changing that was so delicate in the beginning has now become second nature. We are comfortable holding and handling him now as opposed to feeling like we were going to “break him” just a month ago.

Ava even had a chance to meet her little brother for the first time the other day. It was a cute moment and she touched his head and ears and said ‘bebe”. We wonder what she really understands about all this.

We feel so blessed that Will is growing and maturing so nicely. One of the recent tests he passed was sitting in his car seat for 90 minutes without a significant drop in his heart rate. That was good news as the home countdown has begun. This of course makes us excited, but nervous at the same time. It’s one thing to be in the hands of experts and connected to monitors and another for him to be home. We will just need to bank on our previous experience with Ava and realize that at this point it is a common occurrence that happens daily to many families. I can now relate and appreciate what others have gone through.

In next week's blog, we hope to write about Will being home and how he is acclimating himself to his new surroundings. Keep your fingers crossed and thanks again for all your support and best wishes.

 

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Will update 5/4/2011

Another week has passed by and there have been a couple more milestones for our little buddy Will. He is making great progress. He is now weighing 4 lbs and 10 oz, so we are happy with that.

 The biggest change from last week’s report is that his nasal canula has been removed. This means that he is now breathing totally on his own. He has done very well and adjusted beautifully. It’s nice that most of his tubes are gone and we can finally see his face.

 Most preemies know how to breath, swallow and suck, but to do it together in a control fashion is not easy. Some of the organs are still so immature and it takes practice. So for the last month Will has been fed by gavage (French for “to gorge for food”). A soft plastic tube was inserted through his mouth or nose into the stomach and that’s the way he got my milk. This didn’t bother him and was helpful as the gag reflex is normally develops around 34 weeks.

The good news in the past week or so is that Will is strong enough now to take most of the milk (5-6 feedings out of 8) by bottle and breast each day. He has an occasional dip in the heart rate during this process, which is totally normal. This is obviously a big step in the right direction.

 He still has a little fluid in each kidney. They did a test on Monday to see whether there is urine backing up into the kidneys when he pees. Good news is that is not the case and they will continue to monitor it.

 Through this challenging journey we have spent a lot of time with the doctors and nurses. We would like to thank all of them for their knowledge, support and dedication to their many babies. They make a stressful situation a lot easier for families to take and enable us to leave the hospital in full confidence. As always, thanks to all of you for your prayers and well wishes too. It is helping!

 Until next time, all the best