it's offical

Asher is coming home today...don't have much time to write but I will update later today, hopefully with a sleeping baby on my chest and my little girl sitting next to me helping!! 

So many tears, so many tears of joy!!

Asher Catch up ~ Bad Blogging Mommy

Here is our last month in a nut shell…

For me it seems that when things started to steadily got so much better, I was able to get into a routine and just do what needed to be done. I apologize for not keeping everyone up to date, it is nice to hear that people were reading this and when I was not blogging sending me emails and such checking in. THANK YOU for caring and thinking about us, the appreciation we have for all the love and positive thoughts is what has gotten us as far as we are!!

Our sweet boy has really chosen his own path, the slow and steady one but none the less we have gained strength and patience. Asher has done nothing but amaze us every day, every week. After a few weeks of being on the nasal canula he decided he was done…ummm yes that little 3+ pound baby decided that he was done with it. Taking the canula out of his nose and either setting it upon his nose or chin/mouth area was where he thought it should be, NOT his little nose. Asher has now been off the canula for almost 2 weeks and his episodes of Apena and Bacarydia have become less and less, I actually think the last time he had a minor episode was 2/23. Even those small episodes that he had were all ones that he was able to recover himself.

Asher’s weight gain has been that of a snail. I think it might be just the way our babies are, small and slow growers (Saige is 2 and is only 24lbs) but when a baby is born as small as Asher was, gaining weight is a big big part of getting better. We have continued to battle the belly issue and have had to take very small baby steps when increasing the calories in his food as well and get him off the continuous feeds and onto a gavage feeding. After waiting it out with the Cpap gone and not munch of a belly change Dr E and Dr B decided to take a chance and increase the calories into his food. Asher steadily begin to pack on the oz. Since he was tolerating the higher calorie breast milk so much better, his feedings were slowly condensed. Asher has tolerated all of these changes very well. He hit the 4lb mark on 2/15, less then a month (by a few days) then it took him to get into the 3lb club.

Oh how I have grown….

Forgotten Post~ a few weeks ago 2/7/2010

My Feelings:
So things are going as well as they could for this situation…we are still taking things day by day. It has been really refreshing that our positive days are out weighing the not so positive. I am not sure at what point you become a NICU veteran but I would think 60 days so far sure would qualify. I get surprised when I get to the hospital and have a nurse I don’t know yet. Asher’s room is that of the revolving roommates, we are on number 5. It might be sign of how long we have been there but I like to think of it as the “good luck” room…they all go home, just like we will someday soon too! In addition I believe my veteran status is just that when I can look at all the names of the sweet babies in our unit and know that they weren’t there when we arrived. Maybe this is a sign that the time we are spending in the NICU is starting to get to me since I often ponder this…BUT I do know as excited as I will be to take my sweet boy home, I will miss my new friends in the NICU terribly.

Asher Dale: Slow and Steady wins the race…

As of just a few days ago Mr. Asher officially put the ole’ CPAP to rest, this is after a few failed attempts but none the he kept working at it and now it is no more. He is a big boy with the nasal canula and has been doing AMAZING. He is still having some minor Apena and bacardydia but for the most part he is able to recover on his own and not have his nurses give him little reminders. Asher has been having quite an extended belly which has really been holding him back from increasing his food calorie intakes as well as the possibility of starting to bottle feed. Dr E and Dr B have done test after test but nothing has come up as showing anything but air in his belly, for the most part it does not seem to bother him. They are hoping that after a few more days of being off the Cpap his belly will go down, if not on to more tests. My fingers are crossed that we really are just dealing with too much air in his tummy!