Monday, April 25, 2011

Fiona's "un-birthday"

Today is Fiona's "un-birthday".... AKA my original due date :)  I'm celebrating by eating copious amounts of Easter cut out cookies and chocolate, naturally.  ;)  I can't believe she's already been here for almost 7 weeks!!  I'm so glad we got to spend all this extra time with her!!

Life at home has been great! Dave and I took two weeks off together to just bond and spend with Fiona when she came home from the hospital.  We didn't take any visitors and we just spent some real quality time together as a family.  It was truly amazing and I feel blessed to have had the ability to do so. 

I have been really impressed by Dave! He never had much exposure to babies, or any real interest in holding anyone else's baby, so he was a little apprehensive about Fiona but I have to say that he really is a natural.  Fatherhood looks very good on him, and I feel lucky that our little girl will have such a great male presence in her life.  He changes a diaper like a champ, and he survived his first time being a victim of a projectile spit-up quite well :)  I love seeing them snuggle together and how she recognizes the sound of his voice as well.  It has made me appreciate Dave on an even deeper level and I'm so looking forward to raising her together!!

Today is my first day back to my full time job, and I'm working from home.  I can't even begin to express how grateful I am that I was afforded that option.  Every time I thought about taking her to daycare somewhere I was literally sick over it. I'm not knocking daycare, trust me.  I was a nanny for a few VERY young infants myself, and I know that you have to do what you have to do to pay the bills.   I have just always had a very strong desire to be at home with my children, at least until they were school age, and this is a nice compromise.  Thank you, Universe!! Much gratitude!!

So, what's a day like in the Reszkowski household?? Let me fill you in.  Fiona is still feeding every 2.5-3 hours day and night.  She usually stays awake after one of her feedings for sure, sometimes after two of them, but which feeding that might be is always a surprise to us.  When it's after the 2AM feeding like last night, it's not always a pleasant surprise ;)  Our poor little one has been really struggling with her digestion.  They say it's normal, and that her digestive system just isn't fully matured yet, but we feel so bad for her sometimes.  To begin with, our little girl is not very ladylike :)  She farts more than any human I've ever met, and you wouldn't believe that sound came out of such a teeny little peanut.  SERIOUSLY.  There's been times when I would have SWORN it was Dave, just blaming it on Fiona, but, nope, that's our girl!!  Anywhooo, I digress...  Sometimes when she's trying to sleep after a feeding she just struggles.... squirming all around and pulling her knees up, grunting like crazy, etc. etc.  She's pretty miserable and sometimes inconsolable so we're hoping that clears up sometime soon, being that she was supposed to be born today.  Other than that, she's aces!!  We have a person from the Alliance for infants and toddlers come to the house monthly to track her development, since she's a preemie, and at her first visit Fiona did very well and even exceeded some expectations.  She's a rockstar, so we weren't suprised ;) ;)  She can focus very well on objects and our faces, and she's even tracking them back and forth.  Her muscle tone looks good and we're doing some stretches with her legs and feet to help them straighten out a bit from being so squished up in utero.  We spend at least 15 minutes a day when she's quiet and alert doing "tummy time" so that she can work on lifting her head.  She's getting pretty good and turning it back and forth, and she actually seems to enjoy being on her tummy.  She is very alert when she's awake and you can see her just taking everything in.  She always looks like she's just about to say something profound.  :)  I think she's going to be a chatterbox (I know I was)!! 

We have been taking some video of her with our flip video and sometimes posting them to Facebook and YouTube. The link to my YouTube channel is: http://www.youtube.com/user/MsScarlettBegonia?feature=mhum if you'd like to follow those. 

We had her photos taken and they turned out really wonderfully. Some of the pictures are on Facebook.  We were just thrilled with how well they turned out!!  She's just so darn cute that we can't believe we made her!!! 

All in all, we are crazy in love with her and just taking everything day by day, trying to stay fully present and savor each moment we have as a family.  Thanks for following!! 

xoxo 

Friday, April 8, 2011

Settling in...

Fiona had her first pediatrician appointment yesterday, and it went quite well. At discharge from the hospital on Monday she weighed 5lbs 9oz, and she weighed in at 5lbs 14.5oz at the doctor's office yesterday. Our little piglet is almost 6lbs already!!!! She measured 18.5 inches in length. She's getting so big I can hardly believe it. (Meanwhile, everyone else in the world thinks she's miniscule, and a boy, apparently, but I WILL NOT start dressing her all in pink and  constantly put twenty bows in her hair... I digress...) I also cannot believe that she is nearly a month old. It seems so crazy since we've only had her home for less than a week now!!

She's adjusting well to being home. Brady is still her little guard dog. Any time either Dave or I check on her in her bassinet, he RACES over and looks in on her as well. He also sits under her swing when she's in there, and still does a bit of crying when she really gets to fussing. It's pretty cute.

The pediatrician told us to get her off the hospital scheduled feedings (at 10,1,4,7, repeat) and start feeding her on demand. We started that yesterday afternoon. I think it's more of an adjustment for us!! (Because we now have to learn to decipher her different cries,but that's all part of parenthood) She did well last night, sleeping for about 3.5-4 hrs between feedings, and we're quite happy with that.

We are also going to enroll in the Alliance program for Infants and Toddlers/Early Intervention at the suggestion of both the NICU nurses and our pediatrician.  They will assist us with anything we need with her being a preemie and help us to better understand the developmental progress we can expect to see.  It can be a little tough to decipher those with a preemie.  I don't really anticipate her having a ton of developmental delays, but one never can tell.  We are doing tummy time with her when she is alert and awake daily, and I'm not gonna lie, I think sometimes that she has freakish infant strength.  She can already lift her head when she's on her stomach.  She's not holding it up for very long, but I was surprised she could lift it!!  I'm also fairly certain that she could beat me in an arm wrestling match.  She's a tough cookie. 

All in all, we're really enjoying having her home and spending this time together as a family.

Thanks again for all of your love for our little girl!!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow.... You're only a day away!!!!

Ok folks, we heard from the doctor this morning that as long as Fiona behaves herself today, she will be released TOMORROW!!!!   We are super duper psyched, and obviously not telling her.  Clearly, she is a baby genius that understands every word we say and if she so much as catches wind of this plan, we are sure that she will work her magic once again and we will just be moving straight in to the back room of the NICU because we refuse to be separated from her any longer. 

I cannot even begin to imagine what life will be like now.  I know that new parents are tired and are woken up multiple times in the middle of the night, blah blah blah.  Get serious.  MY BABY IS GOING TO BE IN THE SAME ROOM AS ME.  This is the most amazing concept ever imagined, and I swear if they change their mind I'm going black ops and busting her up out of that piece, and don't get in my way.

What I will not miss:
-Scrubbing in and gowning up just to touch my daughter

-The 70 million cords and wires that are constantly attached to Fiona

-The sound of her alarms when she desats or just gets angry.... Yes, she has what we like to call a "temper alarm".... her heart rate immediately shoots up over 200 and her alarm goes off when she gets mad  (I can't imagine where she gets that from....)

-Her isolette

-Someone else feeding my daughter before I arrive, even though I show up for EVERY FEEDING precisely on time

-The thought of her waking up and no one being there to love on her

-The drive to and from UPMC Mercy 10 times a day

-The parking ramp and the most annoying woman EVER that they got to record the message for when you push the button to get your parking ticket. 

What I will miss:

-Some of the nurses in the NICU that were just plain amazing and allowed me to sleep soundly at night knowing that my daughter was receiving the BEST care possible. 

Um yeah.... that's it.  :) 

We're just so grateful that this truly is about to become a reality and that we'll FINALLY get to spend some time together as a family.  We've been waiting for this for a very long time, and it's amazing that it's finally upon us. 

Thanks so much for all of your love and support throughout both past and present difficult times.  It's meant the world to us and we are so blessed to share this with all of you. 

xoxo