Once Brynlee started bottle feeding and the ng tube (tube through her nose to feed her) came out, things really progressed. She went from a bottle once a shift, to every 3rd feeding, to every other, to every feeding with a bottle all within a matter of about a week... which is super fast! But that doesn't surprise me because if shes anything like Darren and I, we love our food! Haha! By this time, all her nurses were saying they were thinking she would go home in about a week tops! Which was the first time we had heard any possible news of maybe going home. A week passed and we were still at the hospital... Doctors just weren't sure if she was ready yet. She was still pretty young for going home (36 weeks gestational age).
While in the NICU, they add a supplement to the baby's milk to give them extra calories. Especially at this point, since she was burning calories because she had to actually do the work to eat instead of it getting put straight into her stomach through her ng tube. Her tummy wasn't handling the supplement very well and she was spitting up almost every feeding. They decided to try her on straight breast milk to see how she did on that. The goal was that she would still gain enough weight on just that. As long as she was still gaining weight and nothing else happened (Brady's, DSATS, losing weight, etc.) then she was good to go home that weekend, they said.
Sunday, September 1st was finally the day we had been waiting for! You knew it was actually real when they started making us sign papers and watch videos. Darren's parents came up to help us pack up our Ronald McDonald room and to drive Darren's truck home so the 3 of us could ride home together. We ate at our favorite place one last time before coming home, Einstein's. (Amazing, by the way! Greeley really needs to get one). It was finally time to go back to the hospital one last time to get our sweet girl. We fed her, and packed up her room and loaded up the car. Bye bye, PSL! Hello home! I, of course, sat in the back with Brynlee while Darren drove. Sure to check that she was breathing about every two minutes. She did great! Her first time outside, in a car... All sorts of new things.
Sunday, September 1st was finally the day we had been waiting for! You knew it was actually real when they started making us sign papers and watch videos. Darren's parents came up to help us pack up our Ronald McDonald room and to drive Darren's truck home so the 3 of us could ride home together. We ate at our favorite place one last time before coming home, Einstein's. (Amazing, by the way! Greeley really needs to get one). It was finally time to go back to the hospital one last time to get our sweet girl. We fed her, and packed up her room and loaded up the car. Bye bye, PSL! Hello home! I, of course, sat in the back with Brynlee while Darren drove. Sure to check that she was breathing about every two minutes. She did great! Her first time outside, in a car... All sorts of new things.
When we finally got home everything kinda flowed pretty smoothly... until bed time. We have a pack-n-play up in our room that she sleeps in next to the bed so we can keep a pretty close eye on her. I think she had had such a big day that sleeping was just out of the question. All she wanted was to be held and that's pretty hard when you're tired and all you want to do is sleep (props to all new parents!). She kept making little squawking noises and cries until I finally just took her downstairs so we didn't wake Darren and tried calming her in the bouncy seat, or laying on the floor, or rocking... etc. Nothing was working. 8:30 a.m. rolled around and Darren came down and asked if I had gotten any sleep. I just laughed. So he sent me upstairs to take a nap while he clocked into baby duty. Thankfully, because of my awesome husband, I got about 3 hours of sleep, which is about 3 hours more than I had gotten that night. I think she had just gone through so much in such a little time she kinda freaked out. She went outside for the first time, sat through an hour and a half car ride in her car seat, saw new lights and shadows, smelled new smells, and heard new noises in her new home. Not to mention new people. So, who can blame the girl.
Baby Brynlee had her first doctor appointment that following Tuesday. Her pediatrician is the same one that Darren and I had when we were little, and he also attended our wedding. So it is super special to us that he is Brynlee's doctor too. She weighed 5 pounds, 1 ounce at the appointment. One of the most touching things was that once the doctor laid eyes on her, he started to tear up. Its amazing how much heart he puts into his job. That's such an awesome feeling knowing that. We are just ecstatic he is her doctor!
As some of you may or may not know, Colorado was hit hard with some heavy rain fall that actually flooded lots of our state back in mid-September. Our town and surrounding areas especially. On Saturday, we drove around town looking at all the damage the flood had done the day before. All that damage came from the South Platte River. As we were driving around, Darren called us to see what we were doing. He told us that the Poudre River was rising, and rising fast. The Poudre River runs right through our property and is about 1/4 mile from our house. When we got home, we found out some neighbors around us had received reverse 911 calls and we were in a voluntary evacuation. We all were frantic - moving things up from the basement and making sure to grab the important things. As soon as we were all done, the girls all went to my parents house while the boys stayed to keep an eye on the river. There were a total of 10 of us all under one roof for about 5 days.
At Brynlee's 2nd doctor appointment, she had reached 5 pounds, 11 ounces! She gained a whole 10 ounces in just 2 weeks! She is still not even on the grid, but that's to be expected. She'll get there some day. The doctor was so proud of her and really proud of us at what an awesome job we were doing as parents. Especially going from 24/7 care for her by the nurses to us doing it all.
At 6 days old (counting from her due date, since that's where we have to count when it comes to developmental stuff) Brynlee rolled over! How awesome is that!!! It's crazy to think how far she's come so fast, especially looking at where we started at. She truly is our little miracle!
Since Brynlee came home on oxygen, we had an RT (respiratory therapist) come to the house weekly to check her oxygen levels and give her room air tests (take her off her oxygen and watch her levels to see how she handles it). She had about 4 room air tests and on October 1st ( exactly one month after coming home) she finally passed! No more hauling a tank around everywhere she went. The doctor wanted her at 93% oxygen and she was anywhere between 93-97. And the RT people like them at at least 90%. So she was a rock star at that.
After leaving the hospital, Brynlee was on a 4 hour feeding schedule. And they said if we could get the timing right, she could go a 5 hour stretch at night. For a while she was right at the 4 hour mark. Like not missing it more than 5 minutes. It was crazy. Then she would maybe go a 5 or 6 hour stretch once a week. Then there was last night. We fed her at 10, went to bed at 11, and she didn't wake up until 6:45 this morning! Now me on the other hand, was up every few hours checking on her. But it was still a huge chunk of sleep that was AMAZING!! Way to go Brynlee Jo!
We got some professional pictures done of Brynlee last week and holy smokes they're awesome! We're still waiting to get the rest but here's a sneak peek! (If you like them, consider letting Katie do your pictures! Contact me and I can get you her info!)
Take caution reading the rest... I just had to have a little venting session:
Advice from mommy's to the general public (or at least from this mommy). If you're one of those people who has to peek at every single baby on your way through Walmart, please be considerate. Don't just lift up the car seat visor or blanket and start touching our baby. Yes they may have adorable cheeks you just want to rub or tiny hands you just want to hold, but don't. If you're a stranger and we don't know you, as cute as my kid may be, it's weird. As a new mom, we have enough stress and stuff to worry about. I don't want to have to wonder if you just came from the bathroom and didn't wash your hands. Or if you just ate peanuts (or anything) and with that same hand your touching my little one's hands and lips and any minute she could have a reaction because she's allergic. Just because someone has a cute 7 year old kid, you wouldn't go up to her and start rubbing her cheeks or holding her hands. Why?! Because that's weird! And you'd go to jail. Please just keep that in mind next time you see a baby. You don't know what challenges they've had and paths they've had to take. Sometimes it just takes enough out of you leaving the house. Don't add to our stress. And know that the second you leave, we go straight for the wipes and wipe our kids down as if they had just been rolling in the mud with the pigs. So please save us the time from doing that.
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