A Whirlwind Few Days
As I write this, Josephine is now about 100 hours old and doing pretty well, all things considered. She was under UV lights for a while to stave off jaundice, a nice little gift from two parents with bloodtype O+ and the fine Minnesota climate. She was taken out from under the lights and the isolation chamber this morning. This means she is still hanging out in the special care nursery because of her feeding tube, but she’s now in a bassinet at least.
Yesterday I busted Sara out of the hospital where she’s boarding and took her to lunch at Great Waters in downtown St. Paul; it was nice to have a burger and just be a couple for an hour or two in the middle of all that’s going on. Then today we had Easter at our house with grandmas and grandpas from both sides of the family and Sara’s sisters. Again Sara got to take a few hours off to help Anna hunt for Easter eggs.
It’s hard to say what the near future will bring for our family. Josie is five weeks premature and needs to learn how to eat properly. Once her suck reflex has fully kicked in, we will be able to take her home. If you are reading this, please say a prayer for our family, and especially for little Josie that she grows strong quickly so our family can all be home together. Also please ask Josie’s patron saints, Joseph and Mary, to pray for her too!
It’s been a difficult past few days for me as a dad; I want nothing more than to have all my girls home with me. But we are connected by love, prayers, and the support of our wonderful family and friends, and I can’t ask for much more than that.
And now, some photos:
- Some skin-to-skin time with Daddy.
- A smile for Mommy!
- Super futuristic Josie basks in the UV glow.
- Meanwhile, a little girl in her Easter best hunts for eggs!
(If you made it this far, you get one last story.)
Last night I had given Anna a bath and was putting her PJs on in her room. She kept asking for a song, but after I started each one of her favorites, she shouted, “All done!” Confused, I asked her, “What song do you want?” at which point she began saying “Night night” in a deep voice and following it up with “Picka picka!” (her version of birdies tweeting.)
I eventually deduced that she wanted me to sing “Goodnight Ladies” from The Music Man, which you can watch here. This evolved into me exchanging the word “Anna” for “ladies.” Then she shouted out, “Baby! Baby!” So I sang “Goodnight, Baby…” and she began to wiggle, grin, and clap.
What a sweet big sister. I was a proud poppa last night.
Welcome Josephine!
5 minutes after birth.
Getting ready for a feeding tube.
One happy family!
Saying her first night time prayers with Daddy.
Rejoice! He is Born!
- Overwhelmed by Christmas #2.
Merry Christmas to one and all.
May God abundantly bless you in 2012.
Check-ups for babies (and Mama)
- A clean, happy girl with her daddy
Anna had her 15 month check up on Monday, and she is apparently doing well at everything with the exception of gaining weight. Anna lost a little bit of weight over the last three months, although it’s not concerning yet, since she is so much more active and we’re still trying to find ways to get healthy fats into her diet (rice milk has no fat, and most kids get their fat intake from their whole milk). Dr. Mary said we’ll just wait and see what the next three months bring.
Anna now weighs just under 20 pounds and is somewhere around the 5th percentile for weight, but her height shot up (at least supposedly… anyone with little kids knows how inaccurate height measurements can be) to about the 75th percentile. Other than the weight loss, we’re so thankful to have a very healthy child!
I also had my 16 week check-up the same day, and everything seems fine, although really, the only thing they check at this point is the baby’s heartbeat. The doctor found the heartbeat blessedly fast this time, which put me at ease a bit.
Although this probably won’t be seen as “fun” when we get the medical bills, we did get a little bit of fun news: we will be having an ultrasound every 4 weeks, starting at my next one in mid-December, to monitor the baby’s size. Since Anna was IUGR, even though she was healthy, they want to monitor me for similar problems this time around, as well as keeping an eye out for possible pre-term labor once again.
In other words, all is well in the Rogers household, and we are very thankful of that during this holiday season!
- 16 week baby belly
Surprise!
Well, this won’t be much of a surprise to the ten people who read our blog regularly, but just in case you haven’t heard…
We are expecting a baby! Anna is very excited to be a big sister, which she demonstrates by trying to avoid her naps at all cost. Today I am officially 14 weeks along, and although we had no intention of waiting this long to post our news, we happen to already be on to the second trimester (although, unfortunately, still experiencing the “morning” sickness).
We are so excited to be welcoming another child into this world, another person to love and hug and kiss and, yes, even change his or her diapers! We find our hearts expanding daily since the moment we learned that this little one was growing. We are due May 9, and we will hopefully find out around Christmas time whether it is a boy or a girl.
Today I had a free ultrasound at New Life Family Services; they are currently training in several nurses on the new ultrasound machine and they needed volunteers, so a friend and I signed up. It was beyond amazing; I got to lie there for over THIRTY MINUTES, just watching my baby jump around! They even did some examining in 3D, which I’ve never seen before (and most people would never see this early, as there’s not as much to see). Everything was looking good, especially the little button nose.
Just to give you all a peek at our newest little family member, here are some of the pictures from today:
- Regular picture; head is on the right for those of you who aren’t familiar with these.
- 3D picture: his or her head is facing us on the right, arms and legs are up. UPDATE 11/9/11: *Ack! Head is on the LEFT, people! For those of you that don’t know it, I never learned my right from my left!
