Mid-week post?!

Hi everyone,

I had a free minute (actually, I'm pumping and the computer happens to be on) so I figured I'd do a quick post. Thank God Tomorrow's Friday!




















Is that hair??


















Yes, it's starting to come in...just a tiny, tiny bit.

She used to have hair...
















...but I think as her head grew, the hair didn't, and it got swallowed up by the head! Now it's coming back.


Helping with the harvest:















Have a great weekend!

7 Months Old

Willow turned 7 months old yesterday. On Tuesday she'll be 4 months adjusted age.

The good news of the week is her awesome weight gain! On Wednesday she went to the doctors, and she is now up to 11 pounds, 6 ounces. That was a 10-ounce weight gain in 2 weeks. We've lightened up yet another notch on the feeding schedule, but we decided we don't feel right about letting her sleep all night. We figured, why mess with our system if it caused her to gain so well the past couple weeks? We still feed her about every 4 hours at night, but like I said, we're a little less strict about it. We try to get the feedings to line up with my pumping so I don't have to get up as many times. During the day, generally it's still the same as well. We just stress less if she isn't hungry at the allotted time, and hopefully she'll make up for it later!

It was a pretty uneventful week otherwise. Busy, busy. Our summer weather continues - it's been the most beautiful September. I guess it made up for our crappy July. Here's the week in photos:

Checking out a sunflower in our garden:

















Bath time. I know, I know - the PBR shirt again. I got a lot of crap for it the last time. I guess I don't change clothes very often.
















Enjoying the bumbo,apparently:




















Josh modeling the new moby wrap:




















Cam and Liz came over earlier in the week so Josh and Cam could brew beer. We sat out on the patio and enjoyed the weather and some homebrews from earlier. Congratulations to Cam and Liz, by the way, on their engagement! Here's both of them with Willow:



















I added a couple new blogs to my blog list on the side. I've been following the story of another micropreemie whose parents live in Houghton as well. Charlotte was 1 pound, 7 ounces at birth. She's still in the hospital (she's not very old gestationally yet) but is doing great and we're so happy! Check out her blog and please send some happy vibes, or prayers, or whatever you'd like, to her and her parents. The other blog is another 26-week girl from Minneapolis. Jaleah's older than Willow and is also doing well. Her mom ran across Willow's blog and contacted me and now I'm a follower of her blog. We've had a lot of the same challenges and have commiserated about breastfeeding and pumping!

One more thing: Josh says, GO VIKINGS!

Labor Day weekend

Hi everyone,

Sorry it's been so long since we've posted. We went to Josh's parents' house over Labor Day weekend, and I swear it's taken us this long to catch up on all the stuff around the house. I feel like I'm so far behind, both at home and at work, on everything. We're trying to get used to a shifting of priorities so we don't run ourselves ragged - like, it's OK if the bathtub isn't sparkling clean right now; it's more important to go for a walk tonight with Willow and Scout than it is to clean the bathroom. There are only so many hours in the day.

At my last post I mentioned that Willow had a doctor's appointment coming up. That appointment was on August 26. At that appointment, she had again only gained 3 ounces in two weeks. So we went back to 3 and a half hours as a maximum between feedings, 4 hours at night. Willow's been a really good eater the past couple weeks though. Feeding don't take as long. She definitely wants to go to demand feedings - sometimes she gets hungry long before the 3.5 hour mark, and sometimes she just refuses to eat when it's time. We're both very weary of the scheduled feedings and the alarm clock going off at 3 AM. Willow has another appointment this Wednesday; I hope she's gained some ounces! It sure seems like she has. She's outgrowing clothes. She's now too big for the gerber brand newborn onesies!

In the twin cities, we shopped as usual. We got Willow a high chair. It's pretty deluxe. I'm excited about it. It's all eco-friendly, with sustainably harvested wood, PBDE-free cushion, BPA and pthalate-free plastic tray. It's sweet. When she starts sitting in it, I'll have to take a photo for the blog. We also got a new baby carrier - the Moby wrap. I guess I've become a bit of a connoisseur of baby carriers. The reason we wanted to get it is because our sling is too small for Linda and Josh, and we also wanted a carrier where Willow could face forward, because she loves to stare at things when we walk, and when she's facing us, she has "swivel-neck" as my mom says, trying to see what's going on. The Moby wrap has about 6 different holds, and one is outward-facing. Plus, it is SO comfortable for the adult, and I think Willow too. I guess I don't have a photo of it in action yet...but here's me wearing Willow in the little carrier Michelle got me in Papua New Guinea:
















Our trip was good otherwise. Willow was a little fussy though - I don't think she liked the deviation from her routine. Jenson's had hired a photographer to get a family photo, and Willow ruined the photo shoot by crying the whole time. We were bad about taking photos ourselves while we were there, so I don't really have any from the trip, unfortunately.

Our friend Robin got Willow got one of those bumbo chairs at a garage sale. She looks so funny in it. She's so small to be sitting!




















She loves to "stand" on your lap too.




















She's really getting into her toys. She can shake rattles and loves to put things in her mouth.















Well, gotta run. The blog is such a time-suck...there are diapers to be washed, groceries to put away and milk to be bagged up!

New freezer!

Hi everyone,

It was another good week for Willow. She seems to be getting a little better at eating. The puking is much less frequent these days. I still try to breastfeed her occasionally, but it's not an everyday, stress-causing campaign anymore. We just try now and then for the heck of it, I guess. Willow is a bottle-fed baby, and I'm OK with that. The exciting news in MY life this week is our new chest freezer! My parents bought it for us. Thanks mom and dad! I think they're anxious for me to stop pumping so I gain some weight again. I am too, and this freezer is hopefully the beginning of the end. It's been a frustrating experience dumping all my milk for the past 3 months for lack of a place to put it. We had our one full chest freezer, and still quite a bit of milk in our other freezer and at my parents' house. But now that I have another one, I'm going to fill it up (which shouldn't take long), and then "wean" my pump. I may not stop completely, but I want to reduce it enough so I don't have to pump at night anymore, and maybe just have to do it once at work instead of twice. And of course I'd love to be able to eat normally again instead of trying to get in enough calories to feed a football team! Once I have the new freezer full, I think I'll be pretty confident that I've got enough milk stored up so Willow can have it until she's a year adjusted, which is my goal. So now I'm saving most of what I pump again, and Willow's eating milk from May.

My aunt Lisa and uncle Scott came to visit this week. It was great to see them and have them meet Willow. They've been avid blog-followers from the start and were excited to finally meet Willow in person.


















We've been getting a little more sleep at night, which has felt so good. We only wake Willow up once now. I'm a little nervous for her weight check on Wednesday. If she's gaining good, we might try to let her sleep until she wakes up on her own (which she's still never done).

Linda the nanny is really working out well. We love that in addition to being a great nanny to Willow, she pays attention to Scouty too. We can't forget our "other kid"!

Willow still loves the sling. It's the one thing that can calm her if she's overtired and cranky.



















Chewing on Daddy's shoulder:

Baby's first Harley ride

Hi everyone,

Don't worry. Willow didn't really ride a Harley. She sat on one though, and it made for a good photo op with her bomber hat. Doesn't she look tough in her wifebeater! She even has a sort of tough look on her face. Biker babe. hehe. This weekend, our friend Nick came up from the Twin Cities on his Harley. Friday night we went to a block party in our friends' neighborhood. It was pretty cold out, but Willow hung out in the sling the whole time and slept through most of it. Saturday, Josh and Nick rode their motorcycles up to Copper Harbor and met me and Willow out at my parents' camp for dinner. Then this morning, my mom came over and watched Willow for a couple hours while Josh and I and Nick went biking (mountain biking, that is). It was me and Josh's first ride of the year - crazy. It felt SO good to get out biking. I'm already looking forward to that first turn of the ski season too. I didn't snowboard once last year, what with being pregnant and then the C-section and the baby in the NICU and all that stuff. :-/ We did end up going out to dinner for our anniversary too - courtesy of my mom again. Thanks mom!

We also had to take a pic of Willow with Daddy on his bike. Too bad the background is our garbage cans and garage junk. Oh well.



Life's starting to get a little bit back to normal!

Willow is finally long enough that we had to turn her the long way in her cosleeper. She was laying the short way until now. We also got rid of the "nest" we had around her like they had in the NICU. She's still on the monitor (that's what those wires are) so she really couldn't suffocate or anything like that, but it's good practice anyway.



Willow turned 3 months adjusted age yesterday. I think this is going to be a fun month!





Congratulations to my two friends Emily and Mimi, who both just had baby girls. Welcome to the world, Sierra and Zara!

6 Months Old!

Hi everyone,

Willow is 6 months old today! All day at work I was thinking about it: "6 months ago right now she was being resuscitated...6 months ago right now I was waking up in the ICU...6 months ago right now Josh saw her for the first time..." Crazy. Anyway, things are much better now. Willow actually had a doctor's appointment today, and she's up to 10 pounds, 9.5 ounces. 3.5 ounces more than last week. She's 22 inches long. Her blood pressure was even lower today than last time: 82 over something. (They don't worry about the bottom number with babies). Her doctor today basically said she's not worried about Willow at all, and we can chill out a bit. So we'll experiment a little with feeding her on a less-strict schedule and see how that goes - scary, but exciting! We also decided to stop the straight Neosure feeds. I'll keep fortifying the breastmilk with it for a little while longer though. It'll be nice not to have to be like, "is this a Neosure feed or a breastmilk feed?" They'll all be the same! This makes me very happy. The less formula and the more breastmilk, the better, as far as I'm concerned! Our doctor said it must be the breastmilk that's helped her do so well developmentally. I have, however, just in the past week or so, pretty much thrown in the towel on the breastfeeding. After about 9 weeks of trying at least once a day, I realized it's just not going to happen for Willow. I'm sad about it...but not that sad. It least I tried, and it's not like she won't still be getting breastmilk for a long, long time. Not breastfeeding is just one more thing I've had to adjust my expectations on as far as my preconceived notions of how childbirth and having a baby would be. I'm used to it!

On Sunday, after that last blog post, we did get to the beach.



It was sort of cloudy, but hot. Then it started raining. But we were so excited just to get out for a while. Willow dipped her feet in the Lake for the first time! We caught it on video:


Then, we took a little Keweenaw tour, went to Mohawk and got ice cream, then went to the Ramada in Hancock and had dinner on the patio! It had stopped sprinkling by then. We were high on the freedom of being out of the house!

Willow loves to talk and does it all the time now.



Tomorrow's our 4th wedding anniversary. We might leave Willow with Grandma and Grandpa and go out to dinner. We'll see...

Good bye, Auntie Jill

Hello,

A lot has happened since the last post. I wish I had time to update more often, but I just don't.

Last Saturday, we all went over to our friends Andi and Jim's place. I met Andi through this blog. When Willow was first born, she heard about it and contacted me through the blog. Andi and Jim have 1-year-old twins, Cat and Lewis, who were also 26-weekers. We've stayed in touch. It's great to connect with fellow NICU parents who have some idea of what we've been through. Anyway, we went over to their place in Lake Linden for a barbecue. It was so wonderful to get out of the house. Their twins are so cute. And they didn't mind when Willow started fussing, and we didn't mind when Lewis was whining. Thanks, Andi and Jim, for a great time! Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures. However, we did remember to get out the camera last night, when we got together with another NICU family. Jessica and Chad's daughter Samantha was in the NICU when Willow was born; she's 17 days older than Willow but several weeks older adjusted. Willow and Samantha's NICU stays overlapped by a few weeks, so we got to know Chad and Jessica a bit; they live about 20 minutes from here. We've stayed in touch through Facebook, and finally found time to get together. They came over last night and we had pizza and ice cream. It was so great to see little Samantha. She's getting so big and cute! We got some pics with her and Willow together:





On Wednesday, Willow had a weight check at the doctor's office. We were very nervous to see if reverting to every-3-hour feeds had made a difference. It didn't seem to me that she had gotten any heavier. We were pleasantly surprised that she gained 7 and a half ounces in the past week! She's now up to 10 pounds, 6.5 ounces. Double digits - yeah! So, the doctor said we could ease up a bit on the feedings and even said we could try every 4 hours at night. Unfortunately, Willow's been on a bit of a hunger strike the last few days, so we've been hesitant to try that. She's always been a fussy eater, and one thing we have in our bag of tricks is that if she slows down at the end of a feeding, we hold her and walk around the house or the yard, and that usually gets her to start sucking again. Well, lately we have to do that for the whole feeding, most of the time, or she won't eat. It's tiring; by the end your arm is about to fall off. She also hasn't been finishing her bottles, and has been puking more. Yet, she seems perfectly content when she's not being tortured by that bottle (first we torture her with the breast, now the bottle!). We were joking that she might be anorexic. I'm sick of stressing about her feeding issues. I think we all, Willow included, can't wait for the day when we can just feed her when she's hungry, and stop when she's full. I sort of wonder if her internal hunger cues are permanently screwed up. Maybe if we didn't force her to eat, she'd never get hungry! Anyway, enough about that. Geez.

Auntie Jill left on Friday morning, and we were all sad to see her go. I can honestly say that it's been great to have her here. In addition to taking great care of Willow, she took great care of us, and cooked for us every night. Now that she's gone, we're back to eating veggie burgers and mac and cheese for every meal. That was an exaggeration, but not a big one. Jill, we can't thank you enough for everything you've done for us!

Friday was also Linda the nanny's first day. I still haven't asked her if she minds being on the blog. The day seemed to go pretty well. All of the feeding tricks plus the cloth diapering equals a big learning curve for taking care of Willow, but Linda seems to be catching on quickly. I do feel bad that she started her new job right in the middle of Willow's hunger strike. I hope she isn't driven away by how hard it is to get calories into this kid!

Meanwhile, Willow's spent most of the week studying her hands and trying to get them into her mouth. It occupies most of her waking time. It's quite amusing.





She's also started "cooing" as they say. She has conversations with "her friends", that animals that hang from her bouncy chair. Every time she yawns, she makes a cute little sighing sound at the end:



This photo is of me getting out Willow's "hand jam". It's like toe jam, but it collects in the creases of her palm.



We've finally gotten some hot weather up here, and Josh and I are contemplating hitting the beach today...that is, if we can get all the chores done around here. I better go or we'll never get there!