Welcome home!

As you can guess by the title, Anna is home!!!! Praise the Lord!  We are so excited to have our whole family home under one roof.  As we were getting ready for bed last night Brandon joked that we needed to call the NICU before we went to bed.  This has been our habit for the past 5 weeks and it is one that I am glad to send packing! Now we can just look in the bassinet to see how Miss Anna Grace is doing. :-)
The kids were excited, as well, to come home and find that their baby 'sis was there waiting for them.  Ian had not yet met Anna and the first thing he did was ask if she wanted to play trucks and offer her his new Leggo truck from his birthday (sweet boy!).  Since then all of them have asked to help hold and feed her.  I am sure that some day soon the eager offer's of help will wind down, but it is sweet to see their excitement for their newest sister.
Also, for those who are curious, Anna is 4lb. 4oz and 15"L.  She fits well in her car seat and seems to like it, but it would be easy to pick it up to go and not realize that she is in it!  She is such a little peanut, but I am sure it won't be for long.  Welcome home, sweet girl!!

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!

Today is Elle's 5th Birthday!  She has now been home with us for almost a year (not real sure how that is possible!) and tomorrow we will be celebrating hers and Ian's Birthday's at Grandmom and Granddad's pool.  When I went to post a picture of her, I thought I would look back at some that we took last year and can you believe that this is the same little girl?!

Summer 2011

Easter 2012

I feel like we have "baby" pictures of her, because of all the changes and growing that she has done over the past 11 months. Amazing!  Well... Happy Birthday, Elle.  I hope you enjoy your first American birthday party! :-)

My baby boy is 3yr today!

I can hardly believe that Ian is a whopping 3yrs old today!  Where has the time gone?  I am constantly telling him that he has to stay Mamma's little boy.  He says that he will, but I can see that he is not listening.  It's obvious, because here he is at 2 days old....

And here he is now, kissing his bug!  How does that happen that they grow so fast?!

 Oh, Ian.... I hate that I can no longer use the excuse, "He is only 2yr!" for your behavior!  Happy Birthday, sweet boy.  I love you. 

Our little girl is so big at 3lbs. 6oz!

So one week ago Anna took her first little bottle of 10ml and let me tell you, she took it like a pro.  In fact, she has been doing so well with her feeds that she is now allowed to take as much of her "lunch" as she wants from a bottle, which for her is the whole 27ml that they give her!  And she is also allowed to do so from a bottle as often as she wants to.  This is such great news, as this is a huge step toward her showing that she truly is a big girl and is ready to come home.  Now don't get me wrong... she still has a little ways to go before we have that welcoming party, but she is getting closer everyday, Praise the Lord!
I have had several people ask what the criteria are for Anna Grace to come home.  Most think that there is some weight that she must reach before that can happen.  Well, that is not true, but it does often coincide with the criteria established.  The basic list of things she has to do to be discharged is as follows:
1. Take all her meals by bottle or breastfeeding, while maintaining her weight & growing.
2. Maintain and regulated her body temp. on her own.
3. No Apnea or Bradycardia spells.  Which are fun medical terms for remembering to breath and keep her heart-rate up!
Once she meets all these requirements, be assured that we will be the first to let you know! :-)

Got milk?!

Anna is our little rock star!  She had her first bottle today, a whole 1/3 of an ounce!  And let me tell you, she took it like a pro.  We were prepared for some sputtering and possibly a lower than normal heart rate or O2 saturation, but no.  She rocked it! She might be little but she continues to show us that she is a big girl.

2 weeks old today!

Well, Anna received a gift today for her 2 week birthday!  She was "upgraded" to a private room in the Children's wing of Vanderbilt.  (YAY!!)  Now you might be asking, "What does this mean?"  Well, it means that when we visit her we can now stay over night if we want, because there is a pull out bed/sofa, private bathroom with shower, TV and a mini refrigerator.  We can also have 4 visitors in her room at a time, instead of 2.  This is a blessing because both Addie and Elle were able to come back and visit with Anna at her bedside today.  Until now, we were quite content to stay in the other area of the NICU because it was very familiar to us and was so similar to our experience with Addie.  But WOW!  We now know that we were missing out and are very happy to have such a great "suite" now. 
The other great part about being officially in the Children's hospital, is that it is SO much more family and kid oriented (obviously).  The colors and decorations are cheerful.  The waiting rooms are designed for families, so the kids don't feel so confined.  In fact, I think they thought they were visiting some sort of children's museum and we had to settle them down a couple of times! :-)  Anyways, we are praising the Lord, for the small blessing of a comfy room to visit in and for the huge blessing of a healthy baby thus far.  Anna's headed into her 3rd week of life @ 2lbs 12oz and we are hoping to cross that 3lb mark soon!  Thank you for your continued prayers.  Hopefully, I will be able to post a few more pictures soon!

One week update....

Anna Grace is doing so well, Praise the Lord!  Brandon and I are continually amazed at how different a 31week baby is from a 27week baby.  It took Addie a whole year to get to where Anna is now on a respiratory level!  Anna has been completely off of all respiratory support (no pressure, cannula or O2) for the past 4days and the doctor's hope that she will be up to "full" feeds in the next 3 days, so they can stop all IV fluids.  For those of you with no NICU experience, this is really a wonderful place to be!  It means, for now, she will only have her feeding tube so holding her is much easier and she is overall healthy, just tiny.  We know that any day she could take a step backward, but we are praising the Lord that right now her biggest hurdle is to eat and grow.

She always looks very comfortable wrapped in her snuggie.