So Proud to be a Mommy

Can I say one word........WOW. What an incredible feeling and experience it is to be with Addison 24/7. We are loving it!!! We get to hear every little squeak, groan, and breath she takes. We have not been sleeping much, but we don't care, this is amazing. This is what being a new mom should be!!. Thanks to our wonderful friends Mo an Scott who lent us their laptop, we have internet access so I can keep everyone updated on the blog.

Sooo we moved into Care by Parent with Addison on Friday, what an exciting day. Not only was it move in day, it was also Addison's Term Birthday, she is officially 40 weeks. We got all settled into our room and I don't think we took our eyes off of her for a second. The staff is absolutely wonderful and they are teaching us how to administer Addison's medication and do everything for her when we take her home. We do all of Addison's feeds, except for those that she is still taking via a tube if she is still too tired to wake up. We also hit Day 100 on Saturday for time at the hospital, we cannot believe the time that has gone by. Daddy spent the weekend with us and had Addison all to himself on Sunday while mommy attended her baby shower in Forest. What a wonderful party put on by Mo, Mimi and Christine, the girls definitely outdid themselves. Thanks to all the ladies that attended, it was so wonderful to see everyone and celebrate our little girl. We truly got spoiled again. We cannot believe everyone's generosity and kindness during our whole ordeal and then to have such a wonderful party with such wonderful gifts is truly amazing. Love love the Princess and the Pea rocking chair!!!!

Monday mommy got the day to spend with Addy, as daddy returned home for some renovating. It was wonderful to cuddle and bond with little Addy, and just lounge around on the bed together. Around 11:00 am in the morning though mommy got the surprise of her life. The nurses came in and turned off Addison's monitors and told mommy that they were going to be monitor free. No more heart rates and saturations to watch, we had to rely solely on Addy to tell us if anything was wrong. We knew this day would be coming, and finally it was here. We have been relying on these machines for the last 103 days now to tell us if something was not right, what a scary feeeling to lose that security blanket. So daddy raced back that night and I think we have both slept with one eye open ever since then.

Addison is just doing incredible and surprising us all. When we moved into the Care by Parent unit it was our goal to have her eating strictly by oral means (breast and bottle) for her 8 feeds a day, and to do this for a 48 hour period so we could have her NG feeding tube removed. We predicted that this would keep us in the hospital for a couple more weeks at least. Well apparently Addison has different plans and is eating like a queen (she takes after her dad, every 4 hours and we have to feed the guy) and weighing in at 7 lbs and 8 oz. She is excelling with her bottle feeds and as of yesterday has progressed to completing 6 oral feeds in a day, 5 of which were done all in a row. This is absolutely amazing as she expends so much energy eating, but is managing to wake herself up enough every 3 hours and take a full bottle plus a little more. Unfortunately the breast feeding has been put on the back burner so we can work on getting Addison home. Well the nurse walked in today and advised mommy and daddy that we were going to push Addison a little further and attempt to do all feeds orally today and not give her the break of having one administered via a tube. If she was successful then we would push a little further and try for another 24 hours of oral feeds and guess what.............we could potentially be discharged this weekend!!!! Well I think my heart is in my throat right now, as I so want this to happen, but yet I know how much work this is for Addison and I don't want to push her in the wrong direction. Ahhh I just cannot believe it, we are so close. What a mix of emotions, I just don't know what to feel, but believe me there is absolute love for this little girl that has just fought so hard to get us here. We will keep you all posted over the next couple of days. So excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Care By Parent

Hello all, this will be a quick post tonight but wanted to let everyone know the great news. We received a call today just as we were pulling around the corner to the hospital that we were getting transfered to the Care By Parent section at St. Joe's tonight. This means we get to stay with Addison in the hospital in a one room unit, where we do the primary care for her under the supervision of a nurse!!!!! Addison seems to be doing really well with her feeds and they feel that if she continues to progress we may have her home in the next few weeks (or transfer to Sarnia). We are so excited, we actually get to sleep with Addison in the same room as us for the first time and actually get to act as real parents!! I have tears in my eyes as I write this, we are so pumped. So many mixed emotions, scared, elated, nervous. Wow Addison has really come so far, we are so blessed. Unfortunately we were not prepared tonight to stay, so Addison got moved over around 5:30 pm and will be supervised by a night nurse till we return for our stay tomorrow. We will be at the hospital then with Addy till she comes home, but Greg will be back and forth because of the boys!!! This is soooo exciting!!

So unfortunately this may be my last post for a while till we get the little girl home, but we will try to keep everyone updated as best as we can. Thanks so much for continuing to read and we will be in touch soon. Here is a pic of daddy rolling Addy into her new digs!!!!

Leaps and Bounds!!!!!!!!

kay I will give everyone one guess after you check out Addison's latest pics..............can you see anything different????? See if you guys are more observant than her own mother was, ahhhhh.

Okay, okay I cannot hold it in any longer.....if you look closely at our munchkin's little nose you will see that she is minus two prongs in her nostrils. Yep Addison is free of oxygen!!!!! We are so proud of her. What a fighter. She managed to get down last week to a flow of 10% and oxygen pressure of 21, which is actually room air. The nurses left her on this for the night on Thursday the 15th and then took her off early Friday morning. Mom did not even realize when she walked in at first, till nurse Deb pointed it out. What a big girl. Mommy had tears in her eyes and could not believe it, (once she finally clued in!) Addison is doing very well and is managing no oxygen, even with a few little spells. It is so wonderful to be able to walk around with her to the bath and breast feeding room, free of yet another tube and wire. We still have her connected to the heart rate and respiration monitors just to be sure, but these get disconnected when we have to weigh her etc. Ohh what a wonderful feeling!!!! Poor daddy missed it as he was home painting and getting the living room ready and free of dingy old carpet, but he was ecstatic on Saturday when he walked in and saw his little girl. Way to go ADDY!

So another week of great leaps and bounds for our little girl. On Tuesday the 13th Addison was reviewed by the physiotherapists and got a great review. Addison is sitting at about the 30th percentile for her weight, size and behavour, which overall is not to bad for her early arrival. Addison did well at tracking with her eyes and ears and can really hold up her little head well. Mom and dad have been given instructions on some exercises that need to be done to assist Addison with improving her posture and the utilization of her hands and feet. Addison's shoulders remain a little stiff and rounded up from sleeping on her back and she needs to strengthen her muscles on the left side of her neck as she seems to favour her right side. She also needs to improve on her midline posture as Addison does not quite know that she has two hands and feet. Since Addison was born she has been laying splayed out and her hands and feet have not really had any boundaries, which she would have had more laying in mommy's womb. We need to pull Addy's arms and legs in more and start doing Pattycake to get her introduced to her outer limbs. Daddy is very diligent at these exercises and practices them daily with Addy. Our kind nurse Deb also purchased Addy some cute socks and hand wrap puppets that we can place on her hands and feet so she will get interested in the toys and start doing these exercises hopefully on her own. She is still a little to small so right now they sit in her crib with her on the Sleep Sheep along with her new Ladybug dog book that Deb also gave her. How appropriate for the little princess.

Addison continues to feed well and continues to feed both orally and by her NG feeding tube. Mommy is finally feeling way better and we continue to work on Addison at breast. We believe we caught the Mastitis before it got to serious and mommy has started Gentian Violet for the Yeast infection, thus poor Addison's has purple lips from her breastfeeding attempts with the medicine. We call them Kool-Aid lips!! No worries though the nurses say it will only last a few days and it will eventually wear off. Addison continues to go to breast quite well, but is still not strong enough to complete a full feed so she has to receive the remainder of her feed by tube. We have to keep her very regimented on feeds every 3 hours, so we cannot allow her feeds to really extend past the hour mark when we work on breast or bottle so that Addison will continue to digest and be hungry for her next feed. On Thursday Daddy got the treat of his life and got to feed Addy himself, and gave her his first bottle. He was soooo excited and Addison did fantastic and finished her whole bottle in 15 minutes. We are utilizing a speacial nipple on the bottle called a Haeberman nipple (created by some brilliant mom) that allows us to control the speed of the milk through the nipple for Addison so we can avoid any choking and aversion to oral feeds. We have found that Addison needs a controlled environment for feeding, which includes skin to skin contact, low light and noise. This allows her to remain relaxed and concentrate on her ability to suck, swallow and breath all at the same time. She still is not to sure on the whole burping process after the feed and scares herself quite often. Addison has never experienced this before being feed by a tube so it scares her so much sometimes she actually stops breathing. So we continue to work on her feeds as the goal is to have all 8 of her feeds orally and the NG feeding tube removed for a period of 48 hours!!! Mommy and daddy are required to be at the hospital now for most of the day so we can do breast and bottle, and the nurses can do bottles with Addison when she cues that she is hungry through the night. A lot of work for Addison but we know that she will do it, and all at her own pace.

So with all her success at feeding Addison is really packing on the pounds, with her last weigh in coming in at a whopping 6 pounds and 10 oz. She reached the 3kg mark at 3005 grams. She has finally outgrown her preemie outfits and is now filling out the newborn ones quite nicely. She has the most adorable pudgy legs and arms now, it is so wonderful to see. We have even moved on to our third hospital ID bracelet on her ankle, as she just outgrew the second one!!

This Tuesday Addison had a followup head ultrasound done and unofficially the report was good. We still wait for official results however, after our last one that showed a strange area that may have been old bleeding. Addison also had a followup eye check done today and results were good, so much that she was given a follow up date for 4 weeks down the road at the clinic. Clinic I said to the nurses does that mean they are predicting Addison will be home and out of hospital for that appointment???? Well the answer was yes and no, meaning Addison will either be home or in hospital in Sarnia, meaning we may be receiving some transfer papers in the future. Mom and dad have mixed feelings about this but realize this may be inevitable. Our nursing and medical staff is wonderful at St. Joseph's and with Addison being close to going home, we feel we may be starting over again with a transfer to Sarnia. So close but yet so far. So we will keep you all posted.

On Saturday the 17th, Mim, Aunt Danielle and Aunt Betty hosted a fabulous baby shower for Addy in Chatham. Despite horrible snow conditions family and friends made the trek down and spoiled us rotten. Addison received many beautiful things and some adorable outfits that we cannot wait to dress her up in. Thank you so much everyone for all your wonderful presents, we love them all. We are truly blessed with great family and friends.