Bella, Gabe and Josiah

We've been doing a lot of bonding over here. There's been brother-sister bonding... ... father-son bonding... ... and even baby-cat bonding over how much they both like the sleep sack. For mother-son bonding, Gabe spit up in my hair. Thanks kid. He was clearly very embarrassed by the whole incident.

Happy Easter! It was so good to spend the day all together as a family of four! We did have to tag team church this morning, since Easter Sunday just seemed like it would have too many people and too many germs. Pat went to the early service, I went to the late one and Bella went to both... We could've just all gone to the sunrise service since that's about the time that someone decided that he didn't need to go back to sleep...

I cannot say enough wonderful things about the Providence NICU in Anchorage. Every single doctor, nurse, respiratory therapist, physical therapist, specialist, dietitian, social worker, case manager, milk room lady, front desk person and all the others that I'm forgetting went out of their way to give the best possible care to our little boy and I will always be grateful. Every baby should be born happy, healthy and full term, however if that is not the case, Providence is the best place to be. That said, I'm not sure that I was ready to go back there today, even if it was just to say hello. It may have been a bit too soon! No worries, Gabe and I just had to go to his last eye appointment, which he passed. They let us leave last week as long as we promised to bring him back for the appt today. This means that Gabe had his third flight in 8 days. A boy after my own heart! :) It also means that Gabe got to hang out with Great Uncle Tim. Look Ma! No hands!

It's hard to believe that Gabe has been home for an entire week already. Apparently we're doing something right, as he's up an entire half a pound since discharge.  It's been so much fun to show him off. I know that are piles of people that have been praying for him as we've gone through this whole journey and it's been a lot of fun to let people meet him. Also, there's been a lot of this:

Gabe is 37 weeks today, which is officially full term. That's a very strange thought. Who'd have thought we'd ever get here... Here are a few pictures from the last few days... Check out the giant belly! "I'm plotting how to escape from this sleep sac permanently..." "My dad is so funny!" Maybe his forehead will be able to pull his eyes open...

I posted this on Facebook yesterday and was asked to post it here too, so everyone is on the same page: Thank you for all of the love! We're very excited to have our little man home and to be together as a family of four! We're also very excited to let all of you meet him! However, he is still a micropreemie, and the NICU doctors have told us that we need to have a few groundrules to protect him from germs until flu season is over and he's about 6 months old. 1. If you're sick, please stay away until you're healthy again. 2. No kids in our house. I know that there are piles of kids that want to meet him, but it will have to be while we're out and about. 3. Kids are not allowed to touch him. 4. No one may touch him in public. If we're in a small group setting (and your hands are clean!) it's fine, just not in a public place. Once he's a bit bigger we can relax these rules (except for the first one...), but for right now, we need to protect his tiny li

Bella got to hold her little brother for the first time today. She was pretty excited! She also got to feed him a bottle. Max, on other hand, wasn't sure what to do with him...

For the last two weeks, the nurses have been making comments about how well Gabe has been eating and how they think he'll be out of here soon. However, all that anyone could tell me was that it's all up to him and there was no way to know when it might happen. That made it really hard to plan around... Pat was planning to come up last weekend anyway, but we weren't sure if he'd be coming up just for the weekend or if he should stick around longer. All that anyone would tell us was that once they pulled his feeding tube, it would probably be 48 hours until discharge. Last Friday the nurses started saying that if he pulled his tube out by himself they wouldn't put it back in. Thursday night I went to a Discharge class put on by March of Dimes. Saturday Pat and I bought a carseat, went to an infant CPR class and watched a NICU instructional video, all things we had to do to be allowed to leave. I started returning all of the things that various people had lent me while

Gabe had lots of visitors today. Grandma Gail hadn't seen him in a couple of weeks, so she flew up for the day. Then Grammy and Grandpa Jim drove down to see him again and Grandpa got to hold him for the first time. Gabe also had his hearing test today and he passed with flying colors, just as he seems to pass all of  his tests right  now... He also officially hit 5lbs!!!

They pulled Gabe's feeding tube! He's been eating so well that they decided to let him try going without it. Plus, now we can see his whole face without any tape or tubes! However, then this afternoon he decided that breastfeeding was really exhausting and that he really didn't need to eat that badly. Hopefully he'll snap out of that pretty quick before the nurse threatens to put the tube back in.

Today was an exciting day. First of all, Pat flew in last night and when we got to the hospital, he got to give Gabe a bottle for the first time. Every time I've fed him, I've breastfed him. The nurses have given him bottles when I'm not around, but this was the first time that one of us has given him a bottle. He ate the whole thing! After that, Pat and I went to an infant CPR class. We had to watch a video where people were discovering their babies in situations where they needed CPR and it nearly made me cry multiple times. Hopefully I will never need to use those skills... Uncle Tim came to visit this afternoon and they got some good snuggle time in. I think Uncle Tim is smitten too...

I forgot to blog last night! Sorry to those of you who check on Gabe first thing in the morning! Apparently I got distracted since Pat flew in last night. Then I remembered as I was headed back to bed after getting up to pump and chose to go to sleep instead... I don't have much to report on Gabe. They're transitioning him to not using fortification in his breastmilk, which will be nice as we won't end up wasting as much milk after I nurse. Right now they make his full amount of milk for each feeding, and them they throw away the amount that he got from me, since it's already been fortified and can't be reused. With no fortification, they can use a bit of the milk I'd just pumped and not throw anything away, which will be nice. How cute are baby clothes with animals on the babies behind???

The only real update I have today is that Gabe's breathing is doing a lot better. It looks like those bradys were connected to withdrawl off of the caffeine. Also his eating is going really well and he's up to 4lbs 14oz! For the rest of the excitement of the day, I have pictures. :) Grammy and Grampa Jim came to visit today. Grammy got to hold him for the first time. Gabe was concerned that people were going to think he was a girl, so he decided to dress in all camo this morning. I was feeding him this evening and he fell asleep so I sat him up to try and wake him up. He was not impressed. Finally, he was put in a sleep sack for the first time tonight, so the first thing he did was figure out how to free his hands...

Gabe has physical therapy today. Basically, he and the physical therapist sat on the floor while she moved his body around and he got upset because he thought he was getting lunch and she was not helping him out with that. He did really well. Since preemies are born so early, they often lack the developmental skills that come from being squished in utero, like pulling their legs up to their chest to curl into a ball. They lay much flatter, so they have a tendency to arch their backs. That can cause them problems later when they're trying to learn things like sitting, as they'll continue to arch their backs and fall over backwards. Anyway, Gabe did really well. We have a couple small things to work on, but he's doing almost all the things that he needs to be. Given then fact that he's only 35 weeks, I will once more attribute that to the power of prayer. We also had a visitor from home. Pastor Doug, from our home church, was in town so he stopped by to say hello. He last

This morning I was changing Gabe's clothes before I fed him. Apparently he couldn't wait any longer because he grabbed my hand and started sucking... He was a little out of it after that, though, because he had to get his eyes  dilated so they could do another eye test. He still doesn't have ROP, which is good, but it does knock him out for the day. He also is having a few more b radys, episodes where he forgets to breath. The caffeine that he was on stimulated  the part of his brain that reminds him to breath. It takes 7-10 days to get out of his system, so it should be nearly gone. Now we get to see if he's really ready to be off of it or not. The bradys could mean that he's not ready or they could mean that he's having caffeine withdrawal. Basically we'll just wait and see. If he has to go back on caffeine, it's not a huge deal. We'll just have to wean him off of it later.

I don't have too much to report today. Gabe and I had some good snuggle time while he worked on his eating. He's doing so well that in rounds the doctors said that he should be teaching some of the other babies how to eat! Please keep praying for Gabe's little buddy Grace, who's in the nicu in another country. She's been moved to another city so that she could get her eyes treated. Her Dad is a national so he can fly back and forth to talk to the doctors, but her Mom is a foreigner, which makes it more complicated and expensive, so she hasn't been able to see her in a couple of weeks. Grace also has a fungal infection, but they can't figure out where it is, so they're having trouble treating it, and she's having issues breathing. Please pray for her and her whole family!

Happy Birthday to Bella, the girl that made me a mom. I may not have been there when she was born, but she'll always be my first kid. I love you Bella! Being home for the weekend was very strange. I went on bedrest in mid-November, so it's been nearly four months since I've been able to walk around my house. But it also felt like this whole Nicu thing was just a strange dream and everything was back to normal. That said, it was really nice to get the house put together and get it ready for when we do actually bring Gabe home. And it was so nice to actually go to church again! Speaking of Gabe, I went to see him tonight after I flew in and found out that they'd moved in. He had been in a room set up for twins, so when they got a set of twins that needed his room, he got moved. This room has a window, which is very exciting, although it did make me laugh that yesterday he was discharged and today he got moved. They may be trying to kick him out... :) Bottle feeding has be

I called the hospital today to check on  Gabe and the nurse was very confused because she'd discharged him today. Um, what? It turns out that the front desk person had transfered me to the wrong nurse  and she had discharged another baby today named Gabriel. Oops.

Tonight is Bella's birthday with her friends. There was pizza, cake and ice cream and an exciting game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Now there are 5 girls in the living room watching Tangled. Hopefully they'll all go to sleep eventually... I talked to the hospital to check on Gabe. The nurse had just given him a bottle and said that he did well, but according to the charts, he eats better from me. Apparently he misses me! :)

I spent the day at the hospital today, trying to spend as much time with Gabe as possible, because I'm not going to see this sweet little face for three whole days! I'm home for the weekend. It's Bella's birthday, so I wanted to be here to celebrate. The doctor suggested that we facetime Gabe in for the party. :) It's very strange to be here. I haven't been able to wander my house since mid-November, before I went on bedrest. Now I'm back and I didn't bring my baby home with me. So far there have only been a few tears. We'll see how the weekend progresses...

I got to give my not-so-little man a bath today. It was my first bath and Gabe seemed to like it a lot better than when Dad gave him a bath a couple of weeks ago. Sorry Pat! He's getting the hang of this whole breastfeeding thing. He even took 30mls for one feed today! He's only supposed to get 38mls per feed. The nurses were very impressed! Here he is practicing his dramatic look. Also, check out that belly barely fitting into premie clothes... :)

Gabe is up to 4lbs 3oz, which is triple his birthweight! We're starting to get to the point where we can do normal things. Now that he's in an open crib I can actually kiss his head before I leave the room. And yesterday I was waiting for the nurse to come in while I was weighing him after breastfeeding and he wasn't attached to any monitors. I actually got to walk around the room holding my baby. It was amazing!

Someone managed to pull his feeding tube out of his nose, so before the nurse put it back in, I got to take a picture of this handsome little face! In other news, Gabe is officially 4 pounds! They also stopped his caffine today. He has to go an entire week without any breathing issues before they'll officially say that he doesn't need any more, but it looks good!