Ears To Hear

A quick update on yesterday's visit to the Audiologist...he passed both ears!!! Praise Jesus! We are done with that doctor for another 6 months or so. They will continue to follow him to be sure he does not have progressive hearing loss. She even gave us a print out that shows that he passed and I fully intend to keep it as proof for when he is a teenager. :)

Saying Goodbye to O's?

We have very big news to share...(drum roll)...Benjamin has been without any oxygen assistance for an entire week!!! Could we actually be saying goodbye to his O's? I sure hope so! Before I kick the oxygen tank to the curb (figuratively speaking of course - if abused the big heavy tank could explode, not to mention this seemingly delightful action would likely result in broken toes for me) I know Benjamin's lungs need more time and strength. His Pulmonologist recommended keeping the tank around through the cold season, as it is very possible he will need assistance if he became sick. He is also still on a couple diuretics, which we hope to discontinue in the next couple weeks. That will be the real test of how strong his lungs are, since the diuretics apparently make it easier to breathe by getting rid of extra fluid. Benjamin is still on the monitor and will be for quite a while as needed. Regardless, there is rejoicing in our home! Thank you, Jesus!!!

Benjamin is up to 9lbs. I remember one of the first days after Benjamin was born our friends Don & Diane came for a visit and gave him his first outfit. It was newborn size and said "beary cute" on the front with fuzzy bears and a couple trees embroidered on it. At the time I thought it was huge compared to the little baby in the NICU, but Diane reassured me that he would wear it some day. That day has come and almost gone! He is starting to outgrow some of his newborn clothes.

Do you remember 1972? If you happened to be around, you might remember a dandy little toy invention made that year by Fisher Price. It was called the Happy Apple and was a large apple with a smiley face and chimes inside. I remember our family had one. I did not appreciate it all that much, but now I do. We have been loaned one by Benjamin's physical therapist. She says they are great for children's development because just the slightest touch produces a chime and they are weighted so they will stay upright, allowing for hours of chiming fun a baby learning about his surroundings. Benjamin seems to love his borrowed Happy Apple. Here he is enjoying it:Here he is abusing it:
Tomorrow (Tuesday) is Benjamin's appointment with the Audiologist. If he passes both ears he might not have to go back anymore. Please pray for good results (and accurate equipment!)

A Breath of Fresh Air

Benjamin will be 5 months on Thursday (7 weeks adjusted) and continues to grow and amaze us. If you check out his big boy stats on the sidebar you will find that he is over 8 and 1/2 pounds! He has outgrown his preemie clothes and is on to newborn and 0-3 month articles. A big piece of news is that Benjamin is getting closer to being off oxygen. For the past 10 days or so, we have been conducting trials where we remove his oxygen and keep him on the monitor. The result has been nearly no oxygen during the day (we still keep it on him at night until we are more confident) with only a "whiff" here and there and some help during carrides. Today we visited the Pulmonologist, who manages his oxygen, and he confirmed that we can continue the trials and move forward as Benjamin allows. His mommy CANNOT WAIT to be free of oxygen and a monitor. I daydream about going places with only a diaper bag, not tripping over tubes and cords in my living room, and not hearing alarms go off.

We visited the audiologist last week. I was very excited to see that he passed the ear that had failed in the NICU, but then he failed the ear that had previously passed. He went on to start the beginning of a 3-hour long test to determine if there was any potential loss until he decided he had enough of having his ears poked and solved the problem by throwing up all over the audiologists equiptment. She was very gracious and despite the mess she still ooh'd and ahh'd over him, and after booking 2 more appointments (*sigh*) she let us go home.

Are we adjusting to our new life at home? Somedays. I never in my wildest dreams believed that one so little could be so very time consuming. God was so smart to make babies cute. Otherwise Eve would have only had one and none of us would be here. I have also figured out why the oldest son had a special blessing in the Bible and inherited the family goods. That was his reward for the survival of being his parents first child. Since Brian and I were both the youngest of our siblings growing up, we never fully appreciated the fact that our parents got to work out most of their parenting on our older siblings. Poor Benjamin. Good thing he is a survivor!

Another Then & Now

I decided to do another size comparison. On Apirl 1st, when Benjamin was just over 2 weeks old, we took the picture below of both of our wedding rings on Benjamin's wrist. This is a great illustration of how tiny his hands and wrists were.Here is a picture from today with my wedding ring, when he is 4 1/2 months and weighing closer to what a typical newborn would weigh. He could only get 2 fingers in it. What great growth God has blessed him with! This will be a great one to pull out on his wedding day...

Then & Now

I thought it would be fun to recreate a picture that was taken in the early days of the NICU using the same objects. The first picture was taken April 23, when Benjamin was about 6 weeks old/9 weeks before his due date, days before going off the ventilator. He is with his little bunny pal that stayed by his side nearly the entire time in the NICU. The bankets are the same as well.
Here is Benjamin today at 4 1/2 months. Check out those chubby arms! In case you are wondering, the darkness in his skin color on the first picture is not an exposure issue, rather it was due to high biliruben levels. He has changed a bit!I liked this one too.








It wouldn't be a photo shoot without some outtakes!
Bunny attack!









Eating Bunny









My favorite of the series...big yawn. Aren't you impressed on how he covers his mouth? He is such a well-mannered boy.

BIG News and a Mystery

Monday we visited the Pediatrician for Benjamin's 4 month appointment. He had his weight, length, and head measurements charted according to his due date and we were quite pleased. When he left the NICU he was pretty much at zero % in all areas. Drum roll please....weight 12%, head 14%, length 33% (!!!). We were so excited that our little micro baby is now just a small baby! By the way, that comes to 7lbs 2.6oz and 20.25". Way to go Big Ben!

As for the mystery, the most asked question of the last 4 and a half months is "what happened or why did he come early?". I finally got all my paperwork transferred and met with my doctor today. The lab results show that there was an infection, but it did not make sense to my doctor, as the type of infection it showed should only occur if my water had broke and I should have had a fever. This was not the case. I was disappointed since I received the lab report last week and saw there was an infection and had previously been told that if there was an infection, my chances of a future premature baby were the same as any other woman. This is not so, according to my doctor. It looks like Benjamin still has a 30% chance of having a premature sibling. Though this was pretty disappointing to me, I find myself still wondering what exactly happened with Benjamin and why. As a Christian, I don't believe in luck or total randomness. I will probably wonder about my sweet boy's entrance into the world and the challenges he has gone through my whole life, but for one thing I am sure: He is a miracle, he is a fighter, and God has plans for him.

More news - last time I wrote about Benjamin and his love for cannula removal. Yes, he still grabs it an pulls and we are forever trying to get the prongs to stay in his nose. Yesterday I gave in and decided to keep them pulled back from his face and turned off his oxygen. He made it 25 minutes without needing any oxygen assistance. The most he previously could do was about 10 minutes or so. Please join with us in praying that God will strengthen his lungs and help him to breathe on his own. It would be so nice not to drag an oxygen cord through the house or have to switch him to a backpack tank every time we need to leave the house. Sometimes it feels like a ball and chain to us, though we have come very far in the last month (we are near-professionals at our 3-legged race now.)

Yesterday, the Early Intervention ladies came to evaluate Benjamin. Not only did they ooh & ahh over him, they paid him some great compliments in multiple areas. While they were at our house, Brian fed him. One of the ladies paid a Brian a huge compliment on what a great dad he is. They are trained to notice the tiniest details and she commented on the way Brian interacted with Benjamin and how well he responded - gentle touches, the way he talked to him, eye interaction, etc. Brian is an incredible dad. I can tell they already have a special bond and before I know it Benjamin is going to be following his daddy wherever he goes.

Please join us in praising God for growth & recovery from his last surgery. Please pray for vigor to return in his eating (he has been fighting us the past few days on eating and we are trying to figure out why - there are a lot of variables), strength of lungs, and good sleeping for all of us!

Thank you for your continued prayers for our family.

Jamie

Back to Home

Time flies when you are taking care of Benjamin! I have hardly had time to do simple things like dishes, laundry, etc. My life is filled with demands of a newborn (or at least an adjusted newborn) and the many, many doctor/specialist appointments that come with a micro preemie.

We were discharged from the hospital on Thursday afternoon. Scarcely can I remember a time when I was more relieved to see our house! We had 3 sleepless nights at the hospital (especially the last one) and I had more than one meltdown, but by the grace of God we made it and Benjamin is doing well. He now has 3 more scars to add to his collection, now totaling 6. He still has spits up more than we would like and has some painful digestive stuff, but all in all we think he is doing pretty good. He lost an ounce from the time he was admitted to his followup appointment on Monday, but we hope he will recover that ground soon. Some good news is that prior to the surgery he grew enough that he is now reduced to 24 calorie milk, which is much nicer than the rich 30 cal milk he was on when he left the NICU, and he was able to drop one of his prescriptions.

Since the surgery we have tried to keep things pretty mellow, but we have enjoyed time with family. Tuesday night we had dinner with Brian's family as we said farewell to Brian's brother David after enjoying a 4 week visit. Wednesday Benjamin and I went for our first visit to Grandma & Grandpa's farm. We enjoyed a long walk through the filbert orchard and found a few cherries on a wild cherry tree. It was so peaceful and restful. Benjamin got his first lesson in patty-cake, Grandpa style. Oddly enough, patty-cake is part of his physical therapy!

Benjamin is a strong boy. We had a visit with the Physical Therapist from Early Intervention yesterday. We learned that even though Benjamin is medically looked at as being 3 weeks, some aspects such as muscle tone are more advanced since he has been dealing with gravity for 4 months. He can lift and move his head (and has been for 6-8 weeks) and can roll over when he is on his belly. His grip is super strong and so are his legs. She explained that micro preemies tend to have very strong muscles that push their limbs away from the body, where as full term babies have stronger muscles that pull their limbs close to the body. If given the choice, Benjamin would lay with his legs fully stretched and arms wide open, where as a full term baby would probably curl up a bit more. I was doing some of his arm stretches the other day and while stretching his arms over his head, he did a horizontal pull up! That's our strong little man!

Remember Benjamin's history with tube removal? Well he isn't so fond of his nasal cannula and has decided he had enough with it on more than one occasion. On Sunday Aunt Jenny and cousin Amy came to play for a couple hours so that mommy and daddy could go to church and Benjamin showed off his removal trick.

Here are a few more pictures of our active boy taken this morning.