158 days

Alexander spent 158 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. It was 62.5 miles each way. It took approximately 58 minutes to get there. We made 81 trips. We drove a total of 10,125 miles. We spent over 157 hours in the car. Sometimes statistics really put it in perspective on how far we've come these past 10.5 months. 

As of Monday, we hit another important milestone - Alexander has been home more days than he was in the hospital. This was a date I marked on my calendar. A date I literally counted the days until. To me, this date helps further ourselves from the hell (and peace) that is the NICU. 

Much has happened in these 158 days at home. Most recently Alexander has been on the move. He rolls around the room and will even get up on his knees like he's going to take off - he just hasn't quite figured out the forward motion yet. We are working on sitting up - and our doctors have given us some tips to help him out. 

We had Alexander's high risk follow up appointment at the 'U' today and his doctors are thrilled. They couldn't believe how well he was moving about and how he was grabbing toys. They said he's behaving just like a baby his adjusted age (almost 7 months now!)! He was able to be weaned from his oxygen down to .5 liters again, so we hope the extra time on .75 liters has helped him and it will stick this time. We will be closely monitoring him and hope he's ready! He also loves baby food - especially bananas and sweet potatoes. He eats like a little bird with his mouth wide open and will even cry for more. 

We were very blessed to find a wonderful nanny, Jaclyn, so both boys will be home, helping to reduce our risks for illness. It was a difficult decision as we loved Andrew's daycare and Alexander's nurses, but it's our goal to keep them both as healthy as possible as any sort of cold or illness could be devastating for Alexander. His lungs are very weak and still developing so a cold would go directly to his lungs and could be a potential setback or even land us back in the hospital with respitory failure. We will be very cautious this winter, especially with everything already going around, when we plan to be with family or friends. 

 

Life is busy and fun. We celebrated Mary Fran's 60th birthday with a surprise party at our home. It was great fun and all of Pete's brothers and sisters made it home. Pete and I also went to Vegas (my first time) for work and some one-on-one time. What a great time in sin city!!

While we have surpassed our 158 days at home, this is still just the beginning of Alexander's journey. And we can't wait to see what he does from here!

Getting Old

We talk a lot about dreams at our house. Every night before Andrew goes to bed we ask him what he's going to dream about that night. Most of the time it's race cars, ice cream or tractors, but about a week before my 32nd birthday he said that he wanted to dream about police cars...with sirens. And then he added, "I wanna get old so I can ride in one."

Dreaming about being a rock star. 

First off, I had to laugh, because if he's anything like his parents, he may have that opportunity. And secondly, it really made me think how fast time is going. The other night at dinner I was watching Andrew shove spoonfuls of peas into his mouth. It seems like only yesterday that he was picking up one pea at a time to try to get in his mouth. And only a day before that when WE were shoving spoonfuls of carefully pureed peas into his mouth. Maybe I'm just being sentimental with turning another year older and reflecting on the past year, but time is really speeding up, instead of slowing down. 

In three days, Alexander will be 10 months old (6.5 months adjusted). He's rolling all over the place, trying to crawl, working hard to sit up and starting to eat those carefully pureed foods (just bananas and avocado so far but he's doing great!). He's also had 3 teeth break through in the last couple days - which hasn't been fun for our little guy. We don't go back to the U until the end of the month but we believe he's developing just great. He's got the best attitude and you will rarely not see a smile on his face. 

Since life isn't slowing down, we did have to slow some things down for Alexander. He wasn't eating very well over the past three weeks and after trying everything else, we worked with our doctors and nurses to turn his oxygen back up to .75 liters. I have struggled with this and am working very hard to not see this as a set back. Instead, sometimes in life, we have to take a step back to push forward and this is the case for Alexander. A few days after we turned up the oxygen he started eating much better and has started to gain weight again. 

It may just take Alexander a little bit longer than expected - we just have to remember he is the boss and he sets the rules. It does make me remember to slow down and enjoy each day, instead of trying to rush to the day he's off of oxygen - that could be very far off and I don't want to miss the ride. So we will work to slow life down, take it easy and not rush to get older any time soon!