Photos! Jan 12-20

Editor's note:  since Ben came home in early Jan. we've been really busy and no free time for blog postings, which will likely continue into the immediate future, especially now that Mom and Dad are back at work - thankfully Grandma A's here to help!  Will hopefully have more regular updates once Rory decides she can sleep at least a little while at night without being held/rocked/fussing the whole time (I know this is Ben's blog, but she cries and wakes him up so it affects him as well!).


In any case, in the meantime here are some photos of Ben's adventures over the last week or so:

Hanging out at home with Mom and Dad:

With Grandma:

going to the doctor for my Synagis shot (Boo!!!).  You'll notice I spit up all over the table to express my feelings about getting a shot:

Going on a walk for the first time.  I pretty much slept through this most of the way, although Rory was crying so much it was hard to not be awakened!

And of course hanging out with Rory (I'm the one on the left in the pack and play, on the right on the play mat):

First week of January 2012

That's right, it's 2012!

Not much going on on the 1st of the year, hung out in my crib mostly, sleeping off the new year's eve parties.

Mom came to visit and held me for awhile but I was pretty sleepy.

By the way, started the year at 6 lb. 13.3 oz.

On January 2nd, I did really well with my feeds - in fact took all my feedings completely via bottle from 9 p.m. last night through the noon feeding today.  Unfortunately, then I had a visit from the eye doctor, and regular readers will know I do NOT handle those appointments well.  On the positive side, he said my eyes have continued to develop well (I'm into "zone 3", whatever that means) and that I need another appointment in about 4 weeks but hopefully after that will get a bill of good health and not need another one for a year.  On the negative side, he dilated my eyes and then I couldn't see very well so they had to leave the lights down for the rest of the day.

When Dad came to visit for my 3 p.m. feeding he found me asleep and not terribly interested in doing much of anything since I was pooped from the eye doctor visit.

Since I was still upset I couldn't finish up my 3 p.m. feeding from Dad.  However, I did stay up and look at him for a little while afterward...

... then slept on him for almost two hours, including some time on my back and also some tummy time!

Normally January 3rd would've been Mom's day to visit, but she needed to stay home and get some work done to prep for the spring semester so Dad came back again.

I have my hernia surgery tomorrow so I got to take a trip back over to the NICU (where the surgery's gonna be) to spend the night and get ready for the surgery first thing tomorrow.  Here's just part of the long trip (I don't know why they don't put the NICU and Special Care closer together since I'd imagine a fair number of babies have to move back and forth):

And here's my new temporary home in NICU Nursery F:

I was a little confused when I woke up at first about where I was until I remembered that I had been in the NICU before and then felt more comfortable and went back to sleep.

Feeding-wise, I'm doing a lot better now that they've moved me to on-demand feeding, meaning I eat when I want instead of like clockwork every three hours.  I've been eating more like every 4 hours instead of every 3, and that has had a great impact - doing a lot better luck finishing my feeding.

Gonna try to get a good night's sleep tonight to be ready for my surgery, but I'm a little nervous about it....

January 4th
Big day today.

Mom came to visit in the morning - I was hungry!  They hadn't let me eat since midnight last night(!), and as if that wasn't bad enough, just when I had gotten used to having my own room in Special Care Nursery, here I was back in the NICU with all the alarms going off all the time from the other babies.  Made it hard to sleep.

Anyway, Mom said hi, then they gave me some tubes to breathe and I was out.

When I woke up my tummy hurt so the nurses gave me some Tylenol to help a bit and started letting me eat again.

Mom stayed till about 2 then went home and Dad came back for my 3:30 feeding.  I took the whole thing and only spit back up a little of it, then cuddled and slept on Dad for another couple hours.

After the whole surgery incident, I was worried they were gonna do something else to me so kept peeking to make sure he was still there!

Then finally I fell asleep for good.

Mom came back to visit on January 5th.  My recovery from the surgery is going well, in fact they decided I was ready to leave the NICU and moved me back to Special Care.  I only took 25 from Mom but had taken over 70 ml each of the prior two feedings so they said that was okay.  In fact, they haven't even put my feeding tube back in since they took it out for the surgery.  And some of the nurses think I'm ready to go home now, so it can't be long, right?
January 6th
Dad came to visit, and found me resting.

He held me for awhile then I woke up hungry and ate a TON - a whole 80 ml from the bottle, with only a little bit of spitup!

Dr. King says she thinks if I keep it up tonight I could be ready to go home tomorrow so I'm working hard to progress; just trying to keep eating well and rest up in between feedings so I'm ready for the next one. 

Fingers crossed!


January 7th
I think I'll let the pictures tell the story from today.  It's been a long time in the hospital (almost 3 months!) but got to head home at last.  Hooray!  And my going-home weight is 7 lb. 3 oz., not too shabby!

Got home and got to see Rory again after I hadn't seen her since she left our room a few weeks ago:

Hopefully she won't keep me up at night with her crying like she used to in Special Care!

p.s. - Don't know if I'll have as much free time to work on my blog now that I'm home, but I'll try to keep y'all posted when I can!