Half a Year Already?

It's amazing how quickly time goes, without even realizing it. Yesterday was Genevieve's 6 month check up! I don't know where the last 6 months have gone, but our little girl is growing fast.

She weighs 14.11lbs and is now 25 1/4 inches long. These two numbers have her in the 25th percentile for her age. Her head, however, has her in the 50th percentile. Guess she got Daddy's brains! She's rolling over and around the room when we put her down and is trying hard to sit.

We got the green light to go ahead and try solid foods, so we have a whole new adventure ahead! And she still doesn't have any teeth, so that's around the corner too. Here's hoping the next 6 months don't go by quite as quickly.

15 Days Down...

We're getting closer and closer to bringing our girl home! Today we had the hearing test done and she passed. She is officially what they call "po ad-lib"(by mouth at will) meaning she gets to eat what she wants, when she wants. She has to gain weight twice over 48hours and we are waiting for the results of her heart monitor (with baited breath). If the monitor comes back fine and she packs on some weight, she'll be home. These are the days we've been waiting for and it's so hard to not get too excited. Things could still keep her there for a while, but we so badly want to ride on the tails of good news.

She ate well today, taking 90mls or 3 OUNCES! at her morning feeding. She ate another 30 at her second feeding and 60 at her 3rd. She's a hungry little girl and we're hoping she's just as eager as we are to be home. We've got the carseat and coming home outfit ready and her room is done enough for her to use it.

We also had a bittersweet day. We said goodbye to her primary care nurse, just in case she doesn't work again before Genevieve comes home. While we're ready to leave the NICU, we'll really miss her. She has helped make this whole experience so much better for us. Taking special care of our little girl, making us laugh, even on the hard days, helping us cope with having an early baby and giving us valuable tips for caring for her.. We'll definitely miss Christa and all of the NICU staff. We ended up at a wonderful place.

And now, we're almost home!

The Journey Home

"It's your heart running around outside your body". ~ Steve Jobs, on having children

We had a good day yesterday. Genevieve ate really well out of the bottle for the nurses. She gets 50mls at every feeding and she did 5 great ones in a row, taking in 45, 35, 35, 25 and 50! We were so happy that she actually finished an entire feeding without the tube. It's wonderful progress! She's struggling a little more with breastfeeding, but we're making slow progress there too. We've gone from 6mls to 18 in the last 2 days with her.

We asked when babies like Genevieve usually come home from the NICU and the nurses told us they always tell parents they should be home by the time they were originally due. We're hoping she doesn't have to stay quite that long and we can bring her home before Christmas Eve. She is what they call a "Feeder/Grower". Once she gets the hang of eating on her own and gains weight twice in 48hrs, she'll be ready to come home. We're so grateful that she is otherwise a healthy baby and hope she decides that coming home is something she'd really like to do soon :).

She had some heart rate spikes over the weekend that were unexplained. So they did a round of blood work on her and it came back fine. They also did an EKG and Echo (Heart Ultrasound) and those looked good too. She has a small murmur, but the cardiologist told us that 4 out of 10 kids have them at birth. There is an extra artery that goes away and sometimes it causes there to be a slight pinch in the connection between the two remaining ones. It should be something that she outgrows and they very rarely have to do anything for it. She'll have another Echo at 9 months to check it out.

Spending every day at the NICU has it's challenges for us, but we love the time with our daughter. There isn't anything more important to us than her right now. We get up every day with her on our minds and go to bed each night the same way. There's more kisses and snuggles and I love you's between the three of us than we had ever imagined.

Evie's current stats are:
Weight: 4lbs 8oz
Height: 18 inches
Feeding Amount: 50mls per feeding (6 times a day)

Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers for our family, it means so much!

The Unexpected Big Day

November 16th started out like many of our Wednesdays. We had an ultrasound scheduled for the morning and a check-in dr.'s appointment in the afternoon. Brian had to work, so Granny Jan went along for this one. 

While we waited to be taken back for the ultrasound, we talked about how soon our little girl would be here and how fast the time had gone. We were hoping to make it to Thanksgiving, when she'd be 36 weeks, but figured we wouldn't get much past that.

We went back for the test and when the nurse took my blood pressure it was high, REALLY high, so she had another nurse come in and take it again a few minutes later. I had been getting high readings every time I went in for an appointment, but never when I took it myself at home, so I wasn't surprised it was high, but it had never been THIS high before. The doctor came in to check the ultrasound and my fluid was slightly low, however he wasn't that concerned about it. I expected to be told I was going to be put on medicine for my bp and sent along. 

The doctor left the office to confer with our regular ob and the next thing I knew I was being walked to Labor and Delivery. I was admitted, hooked up to monitors and had blood drawn. I had no idea why I was there, if it was just for observation or something else. After about an hour, the on call ob came in to tell me my blood work came back fine, but they were waiting for one more test. It was the protein check that I had done 3 times before and to be honest, I thought I'd be passing with no problem. The next time the OB came in, she didn't have great news. I had gone from a 71 count to 6100! Anything over 300 is bad and they told me they had never seen a jump that high before....way to be an over achiever.

I wasn't going anywhere, they wanted to monitor my bp and see if they could get it under control and if I was going to be released it would be home to bed rest. Over the next few hours my bp wouldn't go down, so they decided it would be best to induce labor and get our little girl out. Since the only cure for pre-eclampsia, which is what I was now diagnosed with, was delivering the baby. The first round of induction didn't do anything, so they tried again. The 2nd round didn't do anything either. My body just wasn't ready to have a baby yet. At just over 34 weeks, it figured it still had plenty of time. A c-section was scheduled for 7:30pm November 17th. YIKES! I wasn't planning on having a baby when I went in for an ultrasound!

Brian made a call to our Birth Doula, Kathy and our photographer Kerri to see if they would be willing to come out. Both were happy to come and I was happy to have them. This was not the birth we had been planning on or working toward, but it was still very important to have these people there for it. Kathy was such a comfort and while she couldn't help coach us through any contractions, she was able to keep me calm as my condition worsened toward the delivery time. I will be forever grateful for all of the cool wash clothes :).

Kerri was also able to take some wonderful pictures of before and after the birth. While she couldn't get any of Genevieve being born, I appreciate having the moments leading up to her arrival forever captured. Especially the ones of Brian in his OR garb.

At 7:00pm, a nurse came in to tell us that we had been pushed back by an emergency c-section, so we'd now have our little girl at 8:30 instead. What felt like minutes later I was being wheeled in to the OR, given a spinal and totally numb from the waist down. As I laid behind a blue curtain with my husband sitting next to me, what was actually happening was hard for me to believe. A few minutes later, I heard the sweetest cry I've ever heard. Our little girl was out and sounding great. Genevieve Ann Porter was welcomed in to the world at 8:46pm. All 4lbs of her :). 

She was cleaned off, wrapped up, and I got to kiss her before she was taken to the NICU. The doctors finished up and I was wheeled back in to my room, where my mom and our Doula, Kathy were waiting. My mom stayed with me, since Brian was down with Genevieve while they checked her out. She was strong and didn't need any help breathing. What a relief!

It was another 24 hours before I got to hold my little girl. The amount of emotion I had as I was taken in to see her is indescribable. She was so tiny, but so beautiful. We spent much of the next 2 days in the NICU with our little girl, feeding her, changing diapers and falling even more in love.