The Sloan Family

Dance E Dance!

2012-01-03T19:44:00.000-08:00

Ethan loves the soundtrack to Jake and the Neverland Pirates (Probably because Daddy really likes it and "drums" on his legs to it!) So this is Ethan dancing in the car (I was trying to get the sun out of his eyes and video at the same time... that didn't work though!)

Car wash

2012-01-03T19:41:00.002-08:00

I took Ethan to the car wash the other day. It was a long line and he was asleep until the darn machine started talking to me. So Ethan was drinking his bottle by the time we entered the car wash. Mark had called me and I was telling him that Ethan was crying in the car wash so of course Mark busted out laughing and insisted that I video it for him to see later. So here it is...

Christmas

2011-12-31T19:26:00.000-08:00

Christmas was pretty exciting yet relaxed this year. We stayed home and let Ethan open presents throughout the day. He was much more into opening gifts this year than he was last year. So of course here are some pics (which also gives you a peak at the new house and our projects!)

I see many years of trouble ahead with these two... This is our patio door that goes out to our four seasons porch where Mark had went for a second so Ethan thought he would try to open the door

Daddy putting together yet another toy and Ethan totally happy....
Dakota (which Ethan has nick named co-co)
Kiara (which Ethan has nick named Kee-kee)

Ethan was opening his gift and was able to push the buttons by opening it just a little...

It was a guitar...

Me and E with a tote full of stuff behind us... still working on getting a place for everything but Mark is building shelved in the storage room this week so hopefully that will happen soon

So many things to be thankful for this year! Ethan is an amazing child and it is so exciting to watch him grow.

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

(if you notice there is also another new blog post after this one... on a roll tonight...good night ;)

Engagement session

2011-12-31T18:41:00.000-08:00

So my dear friend Lindsey asked me if I would be up for taking some pictures of her son, Eli. (Eli is the babe that was in the NICU born just a few days before Ethan.) Of course I said yes. Then she asked if I could do some family pictures. Sure. Then she asked if I could do some engagement pictures. Why YES! I love doing engagement sessions. I haven't done them since we were in AZ so I was excited to this. We ended up having a decent day but the sun was a little harsh because of the time frame we had to do it in. But it all worked.

Here is a family pic... aren't they cute?

Couple ring pictures of course....

Little Eli...
Love this pic.... yes they are wearing muck boots. He is a rancher. It's perfect.
I sent this one to her as a sneak peak while her fiance's reply was "rahr!" I think he liked it.
So much love....
This is Eli and his grandpa's hand...
Lindsey and Josh are getting hitched in June. I can't wait! Now, Lindsey, we need to get going on things like.... your dress!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

It's time

2011-12-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

So I was told the other night by a blog reader, who happens to sleep in the same bed as I, that it is definitely time for a new blog post. Yes I know this. So then I asked him when might he think I have time for such a task. He didn't have the answer to that but he did know that it was time.

So let's see. Not a lot has been going on here. Just boring stuff.

We moved out of our old house on Halloween so Ethan didn't really get to celebrate the holiday but we still put him in a costume randomly throughout November because it was so darn cute.

It took forever to get the paper work done to buy the new house but luckily the guy we purchased it from was an old supervisor of Mark's so he let us move in and start remodeling 2 weeks before we ended up closing.

Ethan was a trooper through the whole process. He was pretty content while we packed and moved. He didn't have much room to crawl around in for awhile. Just his bedroom. The other rooms needed some serious work. Mark and a friend tore out all the drywall in the living room, dining room and hallway. Followed by mudding and texturing all while doing the ceilings in those rooms too. Which left a mess on the floor that needed to be tore up. Those floors are now complete with hickory flooring and new carpet in the living room. Interesting thing about this though is because I needed to keep an eye on E while I was making him his meals I decided to put him in his highchair in the kitchen and set the laptop up with a baby signing time video. Little did I know what would come of it. Ethan now signs a TON of words. It is soooo cute to watch him sign. He signs: book, more, all done, car, bus, cloud, play, please, thank you and more that is not coming to my mind right now.

Oh yes, I hear the wind out side as I am typing. Let's not forget. So we live in a windy area. We knew this before buying the house. It was winding where we lived before as well but we were in town so there were buildings to break the wind. Now we live on a hill. In the country. With no trees. So it's windy. Mostly in the winter though. The other week we had 90 mile an hour winds here. The shingles started to blow off the house above the garage. Great. Even better is the roof was less than 6 weeks old. It was quite a hassle but it got fixed and now just hoping that we don't have more issues with that!

We have doors and trim ordered so we hope to get that done by the end of January. I am really excited for trim because it seems like we go a very long time in our houses without trim. If anyone remembers our house in Wisconsin? Mark never saw the house with trim because he left for his job before we could get it finished!

We had some friends over the other night for dinner, drinks and.... GAMES! It has been forever since Mark and I got together with friends and played games. The last time was actually when I was pregnant with Ethan 2 years ago and I was the only sober one. Let's just say I got a little upset when no one was playing by the rules... oh pregnancy! LOL! It was an awesome time and we hope to do it again soon.

Kailie and I took Ethan out sledding in our driveway. He absolutely loved it!

Here is Ethan with a funny face next to a rocker that used to be grandpa Arlan's.

Hmmm maybe I shouldn't let Ethan watch me talk on the phone to Mark! lol!
Ethan has a few words. His latest is to try to say "drink your tea" (it's from Jake and the Neverland Pirates soundtrack) It's so funny to watch him say it.
Got these superman jammies for Ethan because Mark remembers having some when he was a kid. I am hoping maybe there is a picture of Mark in them. Ethan loves his car again. It has a siren and it was sounding dead for awhile because he pushed it all of the time but it started working again with no new batteries.

My sister refers to Ethan as the my perfect child. I think she is a little bitter that he sleeps through the night and doesn't wake up until 8 or 9 am. I think she jinxed me the other day because we were up with Ethan until 1am with him crying because he was constipated. Thankfully a few kiwis in the morning took care of that. I have to say though he is a pretty easy child. Hopefully his teens won't be a nightmare. But then again have you met his parents... most likely the teens are not going to be easy!

Oh so random...

2011-10-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

(I wrote this blog post 5 days ago and never got around to posting it so I am just going to edit to update ;)

So life has been crazy around here. Crazy and stressful. Some of you may know that we are in the process of moving. Not far but to a bigger place. So here are a few random things that have been going on.

-Ethan has been doing much better with textures. We have added grilled cheese, french toast, scrambled eggs, steamed carrots, grapes, turkey, banana bread, pumpkin cake, and more. It is awesome to be able to give him food with out him throwing it back up!

-My mom is coming on Wednesday to take care of Ethan while we get some stuff done for the new house. Can't wait to see her but also wondering how I will do (and Ethan) when I am not here all day. [EDIT: Mom was here until Sunday and it was a HUGE help. She stayed at the old house with Ethan while we got lots of painting and tearing off drywall done. Ethan was more excited to see Grandma in the mornings than he was me! Oh well that's ok because I am glad they got some bonding time]

-Our house is a disaster. Boxes here. Bags there. Toys everywhere. Can't wait for a clean house.

-I have been a city girl all my life. That's 30 years in case you were wondering. Now... well we will be living in the country. Hoping I like it. The view is awesome that's for sure.

-Ethan has been doing awesome with walking. We weighted his little car so he could walk with it and he got the hang of it really quick and now we don't even have to weight it down anymore! He has taken a few steps on his own but a little ways from walking. Progress though and I love to watch it! Should be interesting with the new house as it has lots of wood flooring.

-Ethan has been doing better with his pincer grasp too.

-Ethan is signing: more, all done, eat, dog, please

-Ethan has been trying so hard to say kitty and tic toc. I think he just likes how it sounds.

-Ethan loves to watch the kitty's around the neighborhood. Ethan might be getting a kitty of his own with the new place.

-It was sleeting at the new place the other day. It only sprinkled here. Hmm. The new place is considered the coldest spot in the nation. It is only 20 miles from here. What are we thinking? LOL!

-Pinterest is one of the best websites!

-Ethan climbs on everything. Including the boxes throughout the house.

-It was Mark's birthday last week. We had dinner and picked up flooring. Exciting huh?

-What do you think was standing to my left when I took this picture? Mark with dog treats and dancing to get Ethan's attention of course!

-Did you know that if you put too much dishwashing soap in the dishwasher that it can permanently ruin your glasses. I often times put too much in and didn't think anything of it. I have tried scrubbing them with hydrogen peroxide/baking soda as well as vinegar. Neither worked. If anyone has any other suggestions I would love to hear them.

-Did you know that putting a bowl of half vinegar and half water in the microwave for 5 minutes will make cleaning the microwave A LOT quicker and easier? Found that tip on pinterest and tried it. Very true.

-I love Project Life. I have been keeping up with Ethan's scrapbook since his first birthday this way. It is sooo much easier and the best part is... I am keeping up with it! I highly suggest it. I think I might use it to catch up on some of our childhood pics too. I plan on posting pictures of this album some day. For right now I will just tell you about it ;) It did come as a kit with an album, journal cards and page protectors. Last I checked she was sold out of them but will be getting more in.

-When we first looked at our current house I thought "Oh I am probably not going to like the laundry room right next to the baby's room." Now my thought is "what are we going to do for noise for Ethan to go to sleep with the laundry room at the other end of the house!" Funny how things change.

-I love coupons. I have just started loving them. I have found this blog that is the best for telling you where great deals are. It points out the best deals at walgreens, target, walmart and albertsons along with a few other stores. It is awesome because it shows you how to pair up coupons with sales and save the most money. It even has links to online coupons.

-I love Nicholas Sparks. Did you know he came out with a new book? I haven't ordered mine yet since I don't want it to get lost in the mail. Funny story... My sister asked me where she should mail Ethan's Christmas presents. I asked her why. She said she didn't know if we would be able to get mail at our new place or if we had to ride down the mountain on our ponies to get it. LOL! She cracks me up. Yes we will have mail. However we will have to use a P.O. box so I will kind of feel like we have to ride into town for our mail.

-I worry about the day Ethan gets a girlfriend. I think I might have my hands full with this cutie!

-Speaking of girls. So Ethan loves to drum. Most likely because his dad drums a lot on random things. Me? Well I don't have much of a beat. But Mark was telling Ethan that he should be a drummer because girls dig drummers. I said, no, drummers always have weird faces when they drum. Well it looks like Ethan has that part down already! Lol!

(I realize these drumming pictures are not the best but I still love them! They would have been much better if I put him on the other side of the coffee table so the light was hitting his face but with kids you can't always just rearrange them and continue what they were doing. Which makes me excited for the new house. Lots of light! Oh did I mention the view. Looking towards Glacier Park. Kind of excited for some sunsets out there ;)

Yep so that about sums it all up. If we could fast forward 2 weeks I think I would be ok with that. It will all be worth in the end. Right?

18 months!

2011-10-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

Geez 18 months already!

Ethan's vocabulary: dada, mama, baba, uhoh, woah

Ethan's foods: chocolate chip cookies, wheat thins, ritz crackers, pancakes, baby foods, and formula (yeah I realize that the first few foods are not the healthiest choices but when you are facing the challenges of texture it is a blessing for him to eat these things!

Size: 12-18 month clothes (Carter's is 18 months), size 4 diapers

walks along furniture

walks with his car

climbs on the couch, rocker, table... basically anything he can he will!

Still takes 1 nap a day for 1-2 hours and sleeps 12-13 hours at night (love this kid ;)

gives the sweetest hugs when you ask for one

lots of smiles

loves to dance

when he waves he usually waves with both hands

6 teeth

signs: all done, more, and he is close to a please

loves peek-a-boo

I really hate that RSV season is right around the corner. Back to the anti-bacterial and not running to the store with him. Ugh. One more season. I think we might have a few things to keep us busy through the winter so hopefully it will go quick!

Preemie and Textures...

2011-10-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

If you recall, I had posted earlier that Ethan was not liking foods with texture. Well, he wasn't getting any better with them and then he started to throw up his baby foods that he has had no issues with for many months. Of course, this started happening at the time our washing machine motor started on fire! Thankfully a friend borrowed us his extra washer since we only need it for 6 weeks. So I started to call therapists in Kalispell because it is closer than Billings. The Dr in Great Falls didn't have a recommendation for anyone in Kalispell so it made it tricky. Eventually I found someone that seemed to know her stuff so I set up an appointment. We headed to Kalispell yesterday and we ended up with an appointment with the occupational therapist, speech therapist, and physical therapist. They were all GREAT! So informative and knew what they were talking about.

Some tips that I thought were great that may be of interest to parents facing the same issues:

-use a specialty spoon with texture on it

-mix in crackers (which he eats plain) with something smooth like yogurt that he normally eats

-when he drinks from a cup he ends up choking because it comes out to fast so they suggested giving him milk shakes, smoothies or just water down some yogurt so he can get the practice of drinking. There is also a product called thicken it that will thicken any liquid. Not sure what this is made of yet so we are going to try the other tips first.

-He has a little car that is meant for him to walk with but it has always been too fast for him that is slips out underneath him. They suggested putting weights (even flour or canned food) under the part that snaps up so it slows the car down. This has already done wonders for him! He loves to walk with it now.

So hopefully we are on our way to eating more foods and working towards walking! Funny thing is is that they asked me if he liked to put things in his mouth. He never did really and I was thinking that was great for safety reasons. Well that may be part of the reason why he is having issues with textures now!

Ethan has been getting into EVERYTHING lately. Here he decided to crawl under the kitchen table to look out the window. That's what Dakota does shouldn't Ethan too?

Goats!

2011-09-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

Last week we decided to take a trip to a local goat farm. The owner was so nice and informative. She had a small pen with baby goats by the house so we had to check them out first. Ethan got quite excited over them....

A little nibble....

And the whole clan... (minus the big boys)

17 months

2011-09-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

So I am a little late at posting this but this is what Ethan has been up to....

Size 4 diapers... just recently!

Just getting into 18 month clothes

LOVES cars... he loves to push them around everywhere

Loves picture books

So smiley and happy

Says baba and dada (which makes dad quite happy ;)

Signs "all done"

Mark says we should call him man cub because he likes to try to walk on his feet and hands like the boy on Jungle Book

Likes to TRY to play in the dog water and food bowls

When we open the back door to let the dogs out Ethan will start to crawl out the door thinking we won't notice!

5 teeth (2 on top and 3 on bottom)

He has been super cuddly lately which of course I LOVE!

When he is tired he will be crawling full speed and all of a sudden stop and lay his head down. If he is crawling by me he comes over and lays his head on my lap... such a sweetheart!

Mark's sister Lori and her husband Matt came to visit us. While they were here we went to Glacier National Park. We decided to go to an entrance that we had not been to yet. We ended up loving it.

This is Lori playing with Ethan in the rocks on Two Medicine Lake. Ethan is in LOVE with rocks!

We did a short hike to find this waterfall...
Just another face of Ethan's ;)
These next two pictures Lori took...

Love this one...
Mark and Ethan on top of another hike we did....

4 years!

2011-09-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

4 Years ago today we were getting married in the mountains in Montana with hopes to live in the area some day. Little did we know that we would get to live here so soon. We love it here. Mark had to work this afternoon so we decided to do a little picnic at a cool spot that I hadn't seen yet. Well Mark didn't know the way EXACTLY so it took a little longer and by that time we were both starving so we ate our lunch on the drive. Once we got to the spot though it was pretty awesome. It is called Rock City and not many people know about it. I will be shooting a small wedding here next month for a couple that has a pretty remarkable story.

It was back roads for most of the way. I'm not gonna lie... I was scared at times! This was the gate we drove through....
There were rock formations everywhere and then it dropped down to the river....
Ethan was pretty happy the whole time because he found a cool rock (and well, he is pretty happy most of the time!)

We have a special couple coming to see us tomorrow that is going to watch Ethan for a little bit while we go out on the town! Look out... we might even stay up til 11!

It's amazing what has happened in our lives over the last 4 years. I couldn't imagine anyone else I would want to spend my life with. Mark is an amazing husband and dad and I look forward to spending many many more years next to him.

Thank you!

2011-08-25T21:47:00.001-07:00

So last Sunday we had Ethan's baptism celebration and it went really well. We were able to get Mark's parents on skype so they were able to be a part of it. Later we skyped with a few more relatives too. My mom and Rudy had an awesome lunch served at their place afterwards. Thank you so much for all the gifts Sunday and the ones we have been receiving in the mail. It was nice to have an actual celebration for him. It was pointed out to me that many babies get baptized in the hospital... not just preemies and they have a celebration too.

Saturday morning we got up and took out my mom and Rudy's new 4 wheeler. After that Ava wanted to take Ethan for a ride.

Are they not the cutest!?!?!?

She was a pretty good driver. Except when she was a little jerky Ethan hit his head on the bar... just a few times though! lol!

Here are just a few pictures from the baptism...

The pastor was explaining to the children what it means to be baptized. My niece Ava is on the left and Madison is on the right. Ethan is in my cousin Drew's arms on the left.

Ethan didn't really like her hand on his head! lol!

And my nephew Aidan....

On the way to Cody there were a ton of sunflower fields that I found myself gazing at. Then I started to wonder why all the sunflowers were facing the same way. Thank goodness for internet on my phone as I was able to get an answer to my question! In case you were wondering too, this is what I found:

A common misconception is that sunflowers track the sun.^[7] In fact, mature flowerheads typically face east and do not move. The leaves and buds of young sunflowers do exhibit heliotropism (sun turning). Their orientation changes from east to west during the course of a day.^[8] The movements become a circadian response and when plants are rotated 180 degrees, the old response pattern is still followed for a few days, with leaf orientation changing from west to east instead.^[9] The leaf and flowerhead bud phototropism occurs while the leaf petioles and stems are still actively growing, but once mature, the movements stop. These movements involve the petioles bending or twisting during the day then unbending or untwisting at night.

Of course I had to stop to get a few pictures!

And now that Ethan is baptized Mark figured he could celebrate with a cigar! LOL!

Just Kidding! It's actually celery. Ethan is having some issues eating foods with a lot of textures and a therapist advised me to try getting him to chew on celery and carrots. It could also be a sensory issue so we are going to get him a sandbox. I know. I thought the same thing. What?!?! But I guess if they get used to textures on their body that they may allow them in their body. So we will see. Stinky thing is this therapist is the closest one that could help and she is in Billings. So it looks like we might be making another trip South if he doesn't start taking textures soon.

Baptism....

2011-08-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

A few days after Ethan was born our pastor came to visit us at the hospital. He had brought up the idea of baptizing Ethan right away. Of course we thought that was a great idea but I was bummed because I had envisioned having a "normal" baptism where you had pictures of him with family before having everyone over for a big dinner. The pastor said that we could baptize him right away and then have a special celebration when he got out of the hospital. On April 5th 2010 he was baptized with just my mom, Mark and I. Ethan was of course was in his incubator so Mark and I had our hands in there to touch him and drop the water on his head as the pastor stood next to us baptizing him. Now this weekend we are finally having a baptism celebration. I wish we lived closer to all of our friends and family so they could be with us to celebrate. Since that is not possible we are planning on having our skype on all day so if anyone would like to "join" us you are more than welcome.

And here is a random video of Ethan last week. We had stopped in a gift shop in West Glacier and Ethan got really excited when he saw the wall of stuffed animals. Mark picked out the bear for him and he was excited the entire time we were in the store. The clerk told us he could stay and help sell bears! Remember before you push play go to the bottom of this site and push pause on the music.

Brother?

2011-08-14T21:30:00.001-07:00

So we had some friends over the other night and as Ethan and their son Gabe were playing I thought "hmm they could pass as brothers!" What do you think?

Are they not the cutest?!?!?!

Ooh and did I get anyone thinking that there is a baby brother on the way from the title of this post? Hee hee... and just to clarify, no we are not pregnant ;)

Preemie Mother's Oath

2011-08-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

I came across this on another blog and felt "wow, this is me. This is what I have been trying to say. Well said."

I have sat in the NICU and waited.
I have cried and prayed.
I have endured.

Like most things in life, the people who truly have appreciation are those who have struggled to attain their dreams.
I will notice everything about my child.
I will take time to watch my child sleep, explore and discover.
I will marvel at my surviving miracle every day for the rest of my life.

I will be happy when I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of my child, knowing that I can comfort, hold and feed him and that I am not waking to a nurse taking another temperature, an alarm going off, another round of meds or because I am crying tears for fear of the unknown.
I will be happy because my baby is alive and crying out for me.

I count myself lucky in this sense; that God has given me this insight, this special vision with which I will look upon my child that my friends will not see.

Whether I parent a preemie with physical challleges or medical issues, I will not be careless with my love.

I will be a better mother for all that I have endured. I am a better wife, a better aunt, a better daughter, neighbor, friend and sister because I have known pain.

I know disillusionment as I have been betrayed by my own body.
I have been tried by fire and hell many never face, yet given time, I stood tall.

I have prevailed.
I have succeeded.
I have won.

So now, when others hurt around me, I do not run from their pain in order to save myself discomfort. I see it, mourn it, and join them in theirs.

I listen.

And even though I cannot make it better, I can make it less lonely. I have learned the immense power of another hand holding tight to mine, of other eyes that moisten as they learn to accept the harsh truth and when life is beyond hard. I have learned a compassion that only comes with walking in those shoes.

I have learned to appreciate life.

Yes I will be a wonderful mother.

Author Unknown

Yesterday we attended the NICU picnic in Great Falls. We didn't know what to expect. We didn't really think the nurses would remember us (maybe some may not want to see us, as I may have spoke my mind a few times while we were there :- / But it was great. They all remembered us and it was great to see everyone. Of course I think it was equally great for them to see how awesome Ethan is doing and to see how they help so many families. We even got to see one of the Doctors that played a huge role in taking care of Ethan. Of course our NICU mates, Eli and Lindsey, were there and the boys got matching tats. I will forever be grateful for the care that was given to Ethan as well as the friends we made in the process.

Here is Ethan and one of the Doctors....

There was a balloon release in memory of those babies that didn't make it....
Eli doing his thang ;)
Ethan at the NICU picture stand...
There were bouncy houses! Ethan liked it (although you can't really tell in this picture ;)

Ethan's tattoo (don't worry... it was washed off that night ;)

Around Here

2011-07-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

So 3.5 weeks ago we decided to start a few projects. Mark's project was to tile the bathroom floor. My project was to paint the laundry room. Short and simple projects right? Not in a small town and NOT with a 15 month old! These projects are STILL going on! The wallpaper that I had to remove from the laundry room was not a simple task. It took forever. Then of course the drywall needed to be fixed. So the obvious delayed it but then we needed drywall and of course they are not open after 5pm here and definitely not on Sundays. Then we realized we needed drywall screws. Then for the bathroom floor we needed more supplies to get that done that was unexpected and same thing... store wasn't open when we were planning on getting more done on it. Then when it was time to tile we laid it out and decided we didn't like the tile. Well no one around here has tile in stock so we had to wait til we could get to Great Falls again. Once we got new tile and grouted it we decided we didn't like the grout! I am excited to get these projects done but definitely learned the lesson of planning ahead around these parts!

This is what lunch looks like at our place....

Ethan has figured out how to turn the tv on and off!
I was in the kitchen the other day and looked in on Ethan and thought he was so cute so I grabbed my camera and as I was taking the picture he looked at me and did his latest look....
This is Ethan....

This is Ethan when I give him the lens cap....

Easily amused!

One year ago...

2011-07-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

One year ago today we finally got to bring our little baby home with us! It was so exciting yet so nerve wrecking. He was born at 2 lbs. 9 oz but when we took him home he was a little over 7lbs. We had to have him hooked up to an apnea monitor to make sure that he continued to breath. We had all sorts of medicines to give him and certain formula to give him with a certain nipple. It was a little overwhelming at first that is for sure. It was so fun to have him home with us. But I will never forget that first night at home. Mark had taken Ethan in the back room to change his diaper and we were going to watch a movie. Only Mark had asked me to come look at Ethan. He had an umbilical hernia that we were told to "watch." Well all of a sudden it looked much much bigger. So we ended up in the emergency room in town with a bad experience. Good thing was we didn't get med flighted some where (which is honestly what we thought was going to happen!)

Here are some pictures from that glorious day!

He really didn't like the car seat at first....

It wasn't long after we got in the car before he was fast asleep....

One year later he is not on any machines and no medications! The saying "they grow up fast" is sure true! We are so thankful for this little boy in our lives!

Hello world!

2011-07-17T21:14:00.001-07:00

Well I know... I thought I was going to get better at blogging but it just hasn't happened. After a recent activity with Ethan I thought... oh I will definately blog the funny things he says when he starts talking.

When you have a preemie they set you up with what is called High Risk Infant Screening. They basically just see how he is developing every 6 months. When he had his first one they suggested physical therapy to help him along. He loved the PT and we loved her. Well recently they suggested stopping PT for now because he is doing so awesome and that we start speech therapy. Not necessarily because he needs it but to monitor him and keep him moving in the direction he needs to go. Ok. Great. We are up for doing whatever we can to help him out. So we have been working on making sounds and playing with words.

So the other day I said to Ethan "Can you talk to momma?" He responded with "ahh ahh ahh ooh ooh." I started laughing thinking that it was just a coincidence. So then Mark got home and we went for a walk and we were sharing our day stories. So then I said Oh yeah! "Ethan, can you talk to momma?" Again he said "ahhh ahh ooh ooh." Mark started laughing and we were talking about how cool that was. So the next day I say to Ethan "Ethan, can you talk to momma?" What does he do? No ahhh or ooh. No this child shakes his head NO at me! So I ask him again and he shakes his head again! Oh child!

Ok, lets see what I have for fun photos...

Ethan loves to pull the clothes out the basket when I am folding them so I plopped him in there and just watched cartoons like this!

Here is Eli pushing Ethan... his mom apologized but she didn't see Ethan pulling Eli's ears seconds before this... boys!
And this is why the hot one has a safety lever! Yes, Ethan was getting cold water out and then would stop for a second after it would hit his feet and then do it again!
Grandma Dawn bought E a new book that has a squeeker in it... it's Dakota's favorite book now ;) Here he is looking for it.... (yeah we have a toy box in the making..)
Here is us on the 4th of July... we lit a few fireworks for Ethan. We did them early because he was tired. The neighbor kids thought we were weird. Ethan's vocabulary was perfect for the night... "ooh ahh ooh ahh!"

Ethan had his first real boo boo... he has been climbing on things like crazy and he was standing up against the coffee table and ended up slamming his mouth on the edge of it... yeah I cried... he cried for MAYBE 20 seconds!

We took him swimming in town. I think its my favorite thing about this town. They have a wading pool outside for kids 6 and under and then the big pool is indoors. I have a bazillion pictures from this day... this is only 1.
Then we had family come to visit. Of course we had to go to Glacier National Park. The day we went was the first day the road was open all the way! This is Mark and Ethan on Lake McDonald....
Here is my mom, my cousin Maria, and my aunt Kathy....
My mom took my camera for this cute family shot....
And Grandma with E....

Ethan's first time at church was today. He loves music so he loved it when every one was singing! He was pretty good up until the end he started getting excited at the people behind us making faces at him ;) Then he liked playing with the oxygen cord attached to the lady next to us. Must have brought back fond memories!

So that kind of sums up the latest happenings around here.

More... already!

2011-06-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Here are few pictures to show what has been going on around these parts....

Can you guess what this is?
It's a poppy right before it blooms! I thought it was pretty awesome. Dakota decided he needed to check out what I was doing.... I have been obsessed with taking pictures of all the flowers blooming in our yard as well as others ;) Not sure what I am doing with them yet so I can't post them on the blog (they may become a card in your mailbox or huge prints on my wall)
Shortly after we had gotten back from Wisconsin Ethan had an appointment with his physical therapist. She was quite impressed with all of his new moves (he was crawling, waving, doing "so big!") but she said next we should work on him pulling himself up on things. I thought "oh ok." Geez, the next day he was doing just that. Now I can't keep him off ANYTHING! Mark said "this is what we wanted right? For him to get healthy, big and strong?!?!?" Of course that is what we wanted but he became A LOT more to handle all of a sudden... Here is one of Ethan's favorite things to do now....
And here is pulling himself up in the crib.... this boy is full of expressions!
Here is a picture of us that mark took... Ethan LOVES string and one of his fascinations is the string to the blinds behind the couch...

I know I know

2011-06-20T20:38:00.001-07:00

It's about time huh?!?!? I have had lots of hopes, ideas, thoughts of what to put on this family blog of ours but time and energy have not happened at the same time for this blog lately. You might think "oh no, she hasn't been taking pictures!" Oh, don't worry my friends. I have a ton of pictures! And I am proud to say that I have been printing a lot of pictures to keep up on E's (or should I say our family) scrapbook. More on that later... I hope ;) Anywho... here are some pictures from my phone...

This one Mark took ....

We got to see 2 beautiful babies while we were in WI and these were a gift I had made. I made one for Ethan and Eli but found that they were about 6 inches too short! Frustrating thing about different brands and sizes!
Here is Ethan with his Great Grandma Val.... (really regret not taking the time to get out the good camera and move them outside along with his great grandma but hey... I got this picture anyway ;)
Oh the girls.... the first night we were in WI 2 of my oldest and bestest girls hung out with me and some wine of course ;) (No need to mention the fact that Mark tried to lay E down but he wanted me so he cried and cried and then.... threw up all over K's guest bed! So sorry K ;) Lov ya!
We went to Milwaukee to see Mark's parents place and check out the zoo. Of course Mark thought E needed a Wisconsin hat...
We took pictures of E with each of us in each state we went through. We didn't get Wisconsin as we arrived since it was 6am and E was sleeping so we got it on the way out. Oh but E was EXHAUSTED! We took him out of his car seat and carried him a ways and he was still asleep for the pictures and even when we put him back in his car seat! Poor baby... I couldn't skip the WI sign though!

I took the phone pictures and put into one so that I can add it to our scrapbook...

I had done the same thing for our trip to AZ....

Once we got back we lowered Ethan's bed.... here he is so happy that he pulled himself up in his crib!
Poor baby... so tired
We checked out the local library last week. Ethan loved it. Funny thing... they are still on the paper system. You know... where they open the back of the book, pull out the pink card, stick that in their system and stamp the book to show you when it is due back. Love it!

NOW... let's see if I can go through my other pictures and do an update on those as well... hmmm

1st Salon Hair cut!

2011-06-02T22:00:00.001-07:00

Well we are back from yet another road trip! This time it was back to Wisconsin. It was fun to see our family and friends. Many of them we haven't seen for over a year. Shortly after we got there a tornado hit not far from where we were staying while another tornado hit the town that we had just left! I have lots of pictures to go through so this is just the beginning.

My sister is a hair stylist so I took Ethan in to get his first "salon" hair cut. (My aunt had done a mini hair cut on him a few weeks earlier)

Daddy got his hair cut too while were there. Still can't figure out why I didn't make time to get mine done?!?!?

Not a fan....

2011-05-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

of the grass. The other day we were doing landscaping work so we put Ethan in his jumper under the tree. He loved it. Then today I took him out there and put him on a blanket and he really didn't like it. He doesn't like how the grass feels. Can you tell....

I think he was saying "can we please go inside now where there is not any grass?!?!?"

Later tonight he crawled! Well he has been crawling for a while but not on all fours. Tonight he went half way across the living room on all fours. I don't think me singing songs and crawling around on all fours on the other side of the living room had anything to do with it. Oh the sight that must have been!

So sad....

2011-05-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

my baby is getting big. He has had one tooth since February. He has 2 new ones that have broke skin. I kind of like the one tooth look ;)

He has been sticking his tongue out a lot lately. I'm thinking it's because of the teeth coming in?!?!?

Mother's Day

2011-05-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

Today marks my 2nd mother's day. I remember last mother's day like it was yesterday. I had spent the night in the apartment and I was not feeling good. I didn't know why. Later I realized it was mastitis. I received many calls that day wishing me a happy mother's day. I spent the day in the Great Falls NICU next to my baby all day. The nurses had made me a mold of Ethan's hands. That mold will hold dear to my hear forever. His hands were so tiny. So fragile. I loved my baby.

Today I love my baby even more. I didn't think it was possible to love him any more but some how it is. The day Mark and I were married I remember the priest saying "Today is the day that you will love each other the least." I freaked for a moment. I thought "what the heck is he saying that we don't love each other at our wedding!" But he continued on with how we would grow to love each other more and more with time. I have found this to be true with our baby too. There are days that I feel like my heart is going to explode with love. I love Ethan. I love his expressions and how much he loves life. He loves us. He loves the dogs. He is just a happy baby and I love it. I wonder how I got so lucky to be his mom. I am so grateful to have him as part of our life. I couldn't imagine life any other way. I have come to realize that what they say is true. Motherhood is the hardest job you will ever have but it is the most rewarding.

And because I have been slacking on the pictures here are a few....

Here is one of my favorite pictures of him with Kiara....

Here is Ethan on Easter morning (it was nice but a little cold yet)

Saw my beautiful niece Ava....

Our last couple weeks have been a little crazy and this is just a sneek peak of what we have been up to....

Ethan and I took a road trip to AZ with my mom. Here is Ethan in his pack and play watching baby signing time dvd.

Ethan's first time in Victoria's Secret ;)
We got a picture of Ethan with all the state signs we passed but we missed the AZ one on the way there but we did get it on our way out of AZ....

And on our way back home we had to stop for a Dr's appointment for Ethan....

We were gone for 12 days. It was fun and nice to get some sunshine. Ethan was an awesome traveler. He was happy to see Dad when we got home though.

What makes me smile...

2011-04-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Ethan has been doing a few things these days that just make me smile...

He smiles and starts crawling towards me when he sees I have a bottle...

When he smiles he just doesn't smile... every muscle in his face goes into it and it is so darn cute!

When he gets happy he does this loud screech... Mark calls him a little pterodactyl (yeah I had to look up how to spell that one!)

When we rock him and pat his back he will try to reach behind his back to grab our hand

He loves story time. He has his favorites. He watches me as I put a book back and waits to see what book I pull out next. If it's one he really likes he will squeal and kick his little feet.

He sits pretty good by himself now but at times he still focuses on his toy when he starts to fall over instead of letting go of the toy and catching himself. But the best part is is when he is starting to tip over he squeezes his eyes shut in preparation for the fall!

His teeth... or should I say tooth. He still only has 1! This one tooth is now 2 months old so it is a pretty decent size... all by itself!

He loves "boo!" Not peek-a-boo, not peek. Just boo. You say it to him and its almost guaranteed an instant smile.

One year ago on Good Friday Ethan was born. I am so happy this Good Friday was full of enjoying him and very laid back ;)

One year ago yesterday (the 21st) Ethan had his heart surgery done in Seattle. It's funny how certain dates are stuck in my head. I remember the whole morning before the surgery I don't think I could breathe. But once the surgeon came out saying that everything went well I felt a huge sense of relief.

And because posts are just better with pictures....

Here is Mark being a hero. There is a cat in the tree. It had been up there for a good part of the morning entertaining the dogs. Finally we decided it wasn't going to come down on it's own so Mark saved the kitty.

Ethan decided to take off his sock in the car the other day....

Mark asked me out on a date the other night for dinner. Of course we don't have a baby sitter around here really so Ethan went with. It was all good up until dessert. That's when Mark passed him to me when I found there was poo soaking through his pant leg. So I headed to the truck to clean up the mess while Mark got the dessert to go... Oh the joys of parenthood! Yet I wouldn't trade one moment!

Again these pictures are from my phone. Mark is always commenting how I have such a nice camera and I don't use it. I use my phone. No, Mark. I use both. I love that I am ok with using my phone camera for certain things. I don't like carrying my nice camera everywhere. I have noticed since I got my new phone I have been taking more pictures of those moments that you just don't have your camera with. I am just happy to capture the moments!

Soon...

2011-04-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

I will be posting about the last week with lots of pictures. 2 birthday celebrations for one special little boy in 2 states in 1 week can be exciting but a little exhausting. In the mean time I came across this video and thought I needed to share.... (remember to pause the music at the bottom of the website before you start the video ;)

Wooo

2011-04-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

Life got a little crazy there for a bit! We are not use to a lot of comotion and then we a lot of it for a week straight. It was so much fun though. It started out with Mark's parents coming to viist. They were scared that Ethan was going to take a little bit to warm up to them and I wasn't sure either. Nope. Not even a minute. He woke up to them in the truck with him and he was all smiles! Here is grandma with Ethan....

And Grandpa with Ethan....

Then Aunt Lori and Uncle Matt drove from Washington to also help celebrate Ethan's birthday. Here is Lori and Ethan....

And the whole family.... Ethan was more into his cell phone string than looking at me...

We celebrated Ethan's birthday with a cake made by... me ;)

And here is the cake in color.... Oh how I learned that I will not be picking up cake decorating as a new hobby (like I don't have enough hobbies the way it is!) The head was just rice krispies covered with frosting. The red (ok so it kind of looks pink but it was supposed to be red ok ;) was carrot cake. The bottom layer was a chocolate later with a creamy chocolate layer inside it. So it didn't turn out as beautiful as I had hoped but it tasted good! This was confirmed by Mark's co-workers as they got the left overs!

Mark seems to think that Ethan is drawn to wood which excites him as he plans to spend many hours with E in the garage. I think he is easily entertained ;)

Ethan's favorite part about opening gifts was the curly ribbon!

Lori and Matt brought their puppy with. Well, I am not sure how many people would consider him a puppy. They say he is 9 months. He is 90 pounds! The dogs loved the company though so they spent a lot of time outside playing.

Here is E in his new little wagon. He fits perfectly in it. And in a few months I am sure this is what he will be using to tote his toys around ;)

Then we went to my mom & Rudy's house to celebrate with family there. Here is my Aunt Diane with E....

Here is my nephew, Aidan. He has HUGE feet and hands. He is just 5 months older than Ethan. They can't find any shoes that will fit him because his feet are just so thick. He is such a cutie....

And my niece, Ava. She was a little shy this time so this was one of the few pictures I got of her...

Grandma Dawn got wind that Ethan liked curly ribbon so she headed straight to the store to get lots of it!

Ethan got a cake to smash in to. No... he didn't get to taste it. I know, such a mean mom. (Considering he has puked a few times before this picture I thought it was best not to.. more on that later) Ethan didn't really know what to think of it so Dad took ahold of both of his hands and played drums in the cake. Ethan still didn't know what to think....

Thank you so much to all of you that helped celebrate Ethan's 1st birthday weather you were here, an email, a text, or a gift in the mail. We thank you all! This last year has been amazing!

Happy Birthday Ethan!

2011-04-02T07:27:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday to you Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to our baby Happy birthday to you!

Today is Ethan's first birthday! Wow how that first year has flown by. Last night as we were going to bed I was talking about how one year ago I was going to bed with some aches but nothing bad. I was getting up early the next morning to get my blood drawn for the usual diabetes test as well as entertaining family that was coming to town for Easter. Yes, last year on this date was Good Friday. Last year on this date we had a big surprise. I can't even explain the emotions we went through. It was crazy. In the end though it was a miracle. It was awesome. This little boy has grown like crazy. He has got us wrapped around his little finger. Every day I think about how full my heart is with love for this little family of mine. Life couldn't be any sweeter right now.

Thank you to all our friends and family for all the love and support through this journey!

And because what birthday wouldn't be complete without a little video... ok maybe not little but I hope you enjoy! (Note: the video has music to it so you will want to push stop to the music on the blog on the very bottom of the page (scroll down))

Untitled from Leah Sloan on Vimeo.

Guess who is 1 today?

2011-03-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

No, it's not Ethan just yet......
It's Eli's Birthday! Happy Birthday little E1!

Eli was born just a few days before Ethan and did his time in the NICU as well. Can you believe this little guy was born weighing in at only 1 pound exactly! He has come a LOOOONG way. His mom has become a good friend of mine. We talk almost daily via email, texting or snail mail. Speaking of snail mail.... Lindsey started up a new shoppe on etsy that you should definitely check out. We have been "pen pals" for awhile now and I LOVE to get cards from her. She is so creative!

Lindsey and Eli paid us a visit last week so I could get some pictures of this little man before he got any bigger. It was fun to watch Eli and Ethan together. It was the first time they got to interact with another baby (you know those NICU mom's and their germaphobia!) Mark got a few pictures while they grabbed each others hands. Funny thing is Eli taught Ethan a little trick while he was here. Eli kept twisting his tongue all around and making squirty noises so the next day Ethan woke up with this new trick of making squirty noises! It is so funny. Now if someone could please come and teach Ethan "so big", wave, clap, and crawl on all fours (Ok maybe not crawl just yet... he is already moving fast with the bear crawl/army crawl he has going on!) This kid just looks at me and laughs any time I do it!

And one more picture of Eli because he is so darn cute ;)

Hmm

2011-03-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

I know I know... you have been looking for a new blog post! Well this post has been sitting here waiting to be published but Mark and I can't agree on how much I should write about something that happened recently. Because life is moving on I might as well post what I have and move on as well....

There is something that I would love to post on this blog but sometimes the internet is just too public. Something that has been replaying in my head over and over again. Something that could have ended is so many different ways. All that I am going to say right now is that I love my family more than anything in the whole world. I am thankful for them every day. Nothing is a guarantee. We don't know when our last day will be on this earth. Don't take one moment for granted.

Love this picture... he looks so grown up!

And since his 1 year birthday (oh the tears!) is coming up this weekend you know there will be more coming soon!

Uff da!

2011-03-08T20:52:00.000-08:00

These last few weeks have been busy!

2 weeks ago it was my birthday... no need to throw out any numbers we will just leave it at "it was my birthday." Mark and I went to Whitefish for the day while a good friend came to watch Ethan. It was kind of crazy to be away from him for so long. On the way to Whitefish there was a HUGE scrapbook store! It was like heaven. I didn't know there were scrapbook stores in MT let a lone a gigantic one! I was in heaven!

We got this picture from the sitter with the text saying "I'll feed myself thank you very much!" Too funny!

Then we stopped at a hotel for a glass of wine.

The next day Mark said that I could spend the whole day in my scrap room and he would watch Ethan. Ahhhh it was so great! Mark asked me to come down for a second and I found this:

We bought Ethan a bob stroller that came in the mail a few days before. It is set up next to our front door waiting for the weather to be nice enough to use it!

Then Ethan had to get his synagis shot in Great Falls. He has to get them monthly through RSV season. They hurt pretty bad but he seems to be taking it better lately even though he gets poked twice now for it! Of course I took this opportunity to talk to the nurse about switching him to formula. I had decided that it was just time. He doesn't nurse so I pump AND feed him. But while I pump he has been getting into things so I have to stop multiple times to get him out of trouble! The nurse then decided to tell me that I really should try continue pumping and that if I got him to nurse that it would make it easier on me. Ok. Fine. I will try it. Yeah, did I mention he has a took coming in! Let me tell you... it is a sharp tooth! Needless to say I was in tears. So back to pumping AND feeding him.

Then Ethan had an eye checkup in Billings. The Dr. said that his eyes looked great. He couldn't tell that he was a preemie by looking at his eyes at all. He said that he was a little farsighted but that was normal with full term babes and nothing to worry about. This is awesome news but kind of funny to look back to June when we were med flighted to Billings because he need to have his eyes operated on immediately. Once we got there his eyes had gotten better and no surgery was needed!

I had my mom come up to help me with Ethan because Mark and I had appointments at the same time.

Since we were there Mark thought he might as well get his wisdom teeth out too. (There is only one oral surgeon in GF and it wasn't covered by our insurance.) So Mark got there and they took an xray of his teeth. They said he had a few extra teeth. Well yeah that is why he was there. No... he had 6 wisdom teeth! Yes 6! They told him that he didn't have to take them out but that he would have problems with them when he is 80! Yet the lady said that it would have been better if he would have taken them out when he was 17. So, when I got there I walked in and no one saw me. The ladies were talking about the guy that was in the surgery room and how he was really going to be a hurtin unit. He had 4 bonies! They were a little surprised when I spoke up and asked if they were talking about my husband. Once Mark was done he looked, hmm, well not good. He looked like he had been in a major accident. His recovery has been going surprisingly well so far. He still has some pain and finally getting some food in his body.

Since we were in Billings we decided to take a few days and spend in Cody with my family. Of course everyone loved seeing Ethan and he was full of smiles. Thankfully he hasn't gotten to the stranger anxiety stage yet. He doesn't see other people that often so I always wonder how he is going to react. Well Grandma decided to teach Ethan a new trick while we were there. She was constantly vibrating her lips at him. When we got home we thought he was trying to talk but then we realized what he was really trying to do. He was trying to vibrate his lips (blowing rasberies is a term I have heard before). We have been trying to teach this kid to do "so big" and put his arms in the air for months and every time we do it he just laughs at us. He thinks its the funniest thing in the world. Grandma vibrates her lips a few times and boom he wants to do it too! Kids I tell you! lol! I did get a little video of Ethan doing this the other night. Maybe a video will be posted next ;)

Note: all these pictures were pictures off my phone ;)

11 months!

2011-03-02T05:07:00.000-08:00

Almost a year old! Wow!

Look what Ethan is up to now....

16 pounds

1 bottom tooth coming in (you can see it poking through in this picture if you look close)

rocking on his knees (just trying to figure out how to move forward without face planting!)

army crawls

rolls over like crazy

babbles

sits pretty good but still needs someone to spot him

likes to stand against an exercise ball and play drums on it ;)

gets on his knees to peek over the bumper in his crib... so darn cute! It's like he is saying "hello is anybody out there!"

Ms. E

2011-02-23T21:27:00.000-08:00

So if you remember back in the fall I did some maternity pictures for a very special couple. Well we got pictures of that baby and now that baby is 4 months old! It is crazy how time flies! She was such a cutie and so fun to take pictures of this last time. Just full of smiles! Here is a preview from each of those shoots....

So glad we were able to get together for these pictures. Can't wait to see you guys again!

A couple uh ohs and a good laugh

2011-02-20T21:05:00.000-08:00

So the other day I thought I would finally adjust the blinds that have been bugging me all this time. They are too long and the strings are really too long. So I was looking at one with Mark for a good 5 minutes to figure out what length we wanted the strings. The strings are the shortest when the blinds are down. I double checked everything a few times. Cut the strings. All good. Went on to the next blind and cut them the same length. Oops only I cut them the length I wanted when the blind was up! So now I have to buy a blind to replace it and because they are older I am going to have to buy 2 so they match! UGH!

When I went through Target a few weeks ago I found this really cute blanket I have been eyeing up for the last few months on clearance for $5! I was pumped. Got it home and was about to throw it in the washer and then checked the cleaning instructions. Hand wash! What?!?! Who wants a blanket that is hand wash only! Ok I probably would have still bought it if I noticed it in the store because its super cute and I plan to use it for our family pictures in a few months.

I gave Ethan a bath the other night and we finally got some good laughs out of him. Can't figure out what was so funny because I have tried making the same noises, gave him a few more baths, played with the bath toys, and nothing works! Stinker. Good thing we got it on video because we have watched it over and over again! Make sure you have your volume on for this video ;)

He also has been doing a little bit of an army crawl. He is a mover these days!

Guess what's new?

2011-02-15T20:05:00.001-08:00

Ethan has a tooth coming in! It is just starting to break skin so you can't really see it unless you really get in there but he isn't a fan of that so.... no pictures... yet ;) He hasn't been cranky about it at all. Hopefully I am not speaking too soon here.

For Valentines we took a little drive towards the mountains. Ethan is a pretty darn good traveler. He loves the car. Maybe because it's like a treat for him since he doesn't get to go anywhere very often! We were talking about how good of a baby Ethan is. I said "maybe he is making up for the first 4 months that was a tough road for us" and then I said "hmmm or maybe he is making up for what is yet to come!" Mark responded with "that's more likely!"

Some people know that I am a little crazy now with Ethan. Being crazy about hand washing is only part of it. My sister knows this. What's funny is when her boyfriend saw this picture he said "that must be an organic tattoo!" Well, no, close though. Simply digital.

And to make up for the lack of posts on the blog lately.... here are some pictures of Ethan and his little tool bench Mark picked up for him for Christmas. He loves this toy! He loves to eat it anyway!

10 months!

2011-02-01T20:22:00.000-08:00

OH. MY. GOSH. Someone stop the clock. This boy is growing so fast. Time is going by too quickly. I mean really. 10 months ago we said "hmm I don't know if we will have another baby." Now the talk is "so when should we have another!" No, not tomorrow. But we think Ethan needs at least one sibling and he is just so darn cute!

So lets see what Ethan has been up to:

-15+ pounds

-Eats cereal, oatmeal, banana, prunes, pears, sweet potatoes & applesauce

-wearing 6-9 month clothes

-sitting pretty darn good... still need to be by him though

-babbles

-screeches... no REAL laugh yet but its getting there

-has the CUTEST smile and smiles A LOT

-loves story time

-loves to grab things... this boy is a lean mean reaching machine!

-rolls to what he wants... tried to roll right out the door!

-loves car rides (you know, the 1 car ride a month to the dr! jk... kind of ;)

-Sleeps 12-13 hours at night (hallelujah! I think he is making up for all the sleep we lost the first 6 months of his life!)

-loves the dogs... he rolls to them now and I caught him half on top of Dakota and playing with his paws the other night!

-he likes baby signing time, baby einstein, sponge bob and a little Oh Toodles (mickey mouse clubhouse)

This is him in the truck yesterday (with a little bananas and milk on his chin ;) as we had to take a little drive to get him some more fresh fruits and vegetables...

Happy Monday!

2011-01-31T04:58:00.000-08:00

So we have a few commercials that have become our favorites that make us think of Ethan (like we don't think about him every second but ya know) and put a smile on our face.

The first one is so Ethan and Dakota....

And this one.... well he IS Mark's child....

9 month checkup

2011-01-26T21:57:00.000-08:00

So Ethan and I went to Great Falls today for his 9 month checkup. He weighed in at 15 pounds. Still on the low side. The Dr. suggested putting formula in his food to give him more calories. He said he just might be smaller due to his genetics too. If anyone has any other suggestions on how to "plump" him up I would love to hear it. He also stated that we are really luck to have him and that he is such a miracle baby. Yes, yes he is.

I am happy to announce that I am caught up on Ethan's pictures through 8 months so now I just have to finish editing his 9 month pictures before next month and I will be completely caught up! Yeah! Now just to finish the 100 pictures from this month!

Here is a picture of me feeding .... hmm who am I feeding here? lol! But after looking at this picture makes me realize why my hair was all crusty the other day! Here I thought it was Ethan's hands!

Ethan loves banana oatmeal and apple oatmeal... yummm....

Conversations...

2011-01-25T20:06:00.000-08:00

So I have had a few interesting conversations this week....

So Mark and I moved here last February and started going to the small church in town. Shortly after, Ethan was born. So of course the pastor baptized Ethan in the hospital as well as informed the church of our situation. Since coming home from the hospital we go to church when Mark's schedule allows one of us to go while the other stays at home with Ethan. Well this last Sunday I went to church. I sat behind an older couple that we had briefly spoke to before Ethan was born. After the service was done he turned around and looked at me and said "so you live here in town?" I said "yeah, we have met before." He replied with "oh shoot, don't tell me I was hungover and I don't remember!" My thoughts (hmmm we might like to hand out with this old couple... they kind of remind me of our old neighbors in Wisconsin that we miss so much!) So the conversation went on about how well Ethan is doing now.

Now the other night I was making dinner. I made these enchiladas that I highly recommend. I told Mark that Ethan needed a bath but he won't do it because he doesn't feel comfortable doing it yet since he is still small. So I started dinner and then headed into the bathroom to give him his bath. Now we have a small baby tub that I use for him and I put it on the floor in the bathroom doorway because that is what I have found to be best on my back (I am old alright!) So I finish up his bath, get him dressed and head back to finish making dinner. Then Mark walks in and says "Leah, lights! I feel like my dad "how many times do I have to tell you?"" So I said "what light did I leave on?" He said "the bathroom light!" So I was silent (aka ignored him) and then a few minutes later I remembered why I left the light on. I said "did you empty out the bathtub that is in the doorway then?" He said "well no." So I said "that is why I left the light on! I needed to finish dinner and I didn't have time to dump out the tub. So now you are going to walk into the bathroom and trip over the tub because you turned the light off!" He said "whatever." So I thought "hmmm I am just going to leave it there. I am not going to make it a point to empty it out if I just gave him the bath and making dinner I hope he trips over the darn thing!" So a few hours later we get ready to go to bed. He is in the kitchen and I go to the bathroom. Yep... I walked right into the darn tub! Ugh hate that! I kind of felt like Ethan in this picture....

Editing and Printing pictures...

2011-01-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

So I have been editing pictures for the last few weeks now trying to get caught up on all of Ethan's pictures. I placed a huge order with a print company because they were having a great deal on 4x6's. Took me two weeks to get them (long story) but I did get them today. I was so excited as I have been working on a few scrapbook pages but needing the pictures to finish them. Unfortunately I am pretty disappointed with the color of the pictures. What is really irritating is that this print company is supposed to be a "pro lab" while I compared them to another print company that is "less quality" and those are much better! It took 4 hours to upload the pictures to this lab to have the order placed and now I get them and they are horrible. So disappointing.

Good news is that I am done editing the first 7 months of Ethan's life! Only 2 more to go... kind of. Since the pictures will only continue for many joyful years! Lately I have been thinking of how great it is to be a mother. There is just no feeling like it. He is absolutely amazing. And the fact that you can say "hi" or "boo" a million times over again and he smiles e.v.e.r.y. t.i.m.e. is so precious and sweet. Love this boy!

Here are two of my favorites from recently....

Poor baby...

2011-01-13T21:16:00.000-08:00

So Ethan has some chapped cheeks, nose and chin... poor baby. I guess I will take that over any thing else this winter! The dr. suggested using Eucerine which seems to be helping pretty quickly. I would love to hear any other suggestions for this though ;)

As I think I stated earlier on this blog Ethan loves the dogs but he is starting to show what he likes and doesn't like. He loves to grab onto their fur. He loves to grab their whiskers. He loves for them to kiss his hands so he can try to grab their tongue. But he does NOT like their cold noses. And he does NOT like to be licked in the ear anymore!

Sometimes....

2011-01-11T17:28:00.000-08:00

focus is over rated. I found this picture from the other day and it is pretty darn cute... so cute I am posting it even thought it's not completely in focus.

A few thoughts....

2011-01-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes Ethan sleeps longer than 12 hours or he naps for longer than an hour and I start to worry. I go in to check on him a million times and I don't leave until I see that he is breathing. And then I wonder "Is this normal? Do parents of full term babies worry that their baby has stopped breathing?" Maybe.

The other day we gave Ethan some banana that I pureed in the ninja. The ninja is an awesome processor and I recommend it if anyone is looking for one. Well that banana caused a real turd in Ethan's diaper the next day! It was so funny. I changed his diaper and laughed and thought oh I should save this to show Mark (he was outside.) He was taking longer than I thought so I was about to throw it out thinking oh he probably doesn't want to see it. Then he walked in. I said "Ethan had a real turd today." He said "what? Let me see. Where is it?" Yep, that's us. Excited about turds!

The other morning Mark came home from work and he went to check on Ethan. I was still in bed with the monitor turned on. Then all of a sudden I heard on the monitor a loud fart followed by a heheheheheee and Mark running to our bedroom. He burried his head into a pillow because he was laughing so hard. He finally caught his breath and looked at me and said "That was Ethan by the way." Hmmm I don't know if I should believe that ;)

It's funny to watch Ethan with the dogs. Now he watches them as they walk by to see what they are doing. Or he will pull at their wiskers or grab their tongue when they lick his little hand. Of course we watch him when he is with them but the dogs are doing really good with him. Ethan was even pulling Dakota's hair and he just turned to look at him and started to lick him. Kiara has showed more interest in him lately too.

Ethan's latest accomplishment....... drum roll please.... up on all fours! I was on the couch talking to my mom watching Ethan play on the floor (as we are working on lots of tummy time as it was suggested by his physical therapist) and he is looking at me with all smiles and a little giggle and I couldn't figure out what he thought was so funny. Then I looked closer and he was on all fours! He was rocking a little then he would let his arms out in front of him and rock on his belly! It was so cute. Crawling doesn't seem like it's so far off anymore. I can't believe how fast they grow up! I think it's time to start child proofing the house. No picture of that yet but here is a picture of him sitting up... he can sit by himself for a few seconds now, sometimes longer just depends on if he has a toy to keep his interest ;)

So pitiful....but so cute!

2011-01-06T19:41:00.001-08:00

So today Mark was playing with Ethan on the floor and Ethan bumped his head on a toy. Tears started to flow. Mark tried comforting him but it just wasn't working. So I took him and started to rock him. Mark decided to grab the camera. These are so pitiful but oh so cute ;)

9 months!

2011-01-02T07:11:00.000-08:00

Where has the time gone? I can't believe our little babe is 9 months old already!

Here is a summary of what has been going on:

-He is 9 months old with an adjusted age of 5.5 months

-Sleeps 12 hours at night (now only if I could get the dogs to at least sleep 8 I would be doing good!)

-Eating rice cereal and got to try some apples today (his first taste was crunched nose and shaking his head but then he liked it ;)

-6 month clothes (just pushing out of the 3 month)

-Size 3 diapers

-Probably about 14 pounds

-Almost sitting (can sit for a few seconds on his own but not long enough to leave him that way)

-Rolling over

-At night he rolls over and sleeps on his tummy, moves to the top corner and lays across the crib (it made me nervous the first time he did this)

-Loves story time... has even made it clear he doesn't like Dr. Seuss books which I am hoping will change soon

-Loves to fly... on my legs that is

-He is on a routine! I was so happy when we were able to establish some sort of routine! He usually takes 2 naps and goes to bed around 8 (we plan on changing the routine so he goes to bed at 7 now that Marks schedule is changing)

-Smiles... and smiles a lot

-No teefers yet although I think one day they are just going pop up

And because every post is better with a picture....

Ethan is so funny during his baths. He still isn't sure what to think about them. He has been doing this thing with his hand by his mouth where he is like tapping his fingers against his mouth like he is in deep thought.

I have decided that this month I would dedicate my time at night to his scrapbook album. Wow... I am just now realizing how big this project is going to be! I have sooo many pictures and most of them are not edited. I took some time tonight to organize the pictures. Any scrappers out there with some tips on how to get this project done before 2020 let me know!

Curious....

2010-12-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

One of Ethan's favorite things to do is looking out the window. He just looks so curious.....

Just a few....

2010-12-22T20:46:00.001-08:00

I realize it's been awhile since I have posted. I always have these ideas of things going on and pictures to post but then it just doesn't get done. We are finally on a routine though so maybe I will fit blogging into our routine some day. Here are just a few pictures...

Mark gave me one of my Christmas presents early (party because I knew what it was... christmas shopping tip: if you buy something from Amazon and want to keep it a secret make sure to set up your own account as Amazon sends emails with the receipt and when it was shipped ;) Any who... it was a macro lens! Yeah! So excited to play around with it! Here is Ethan just laying on my lap....

Ethan had his first Christmas party last Saturday. It was with all the Sloans... on Skype. It was fun to see everyone and I think everyone enjoyed seeing Ethan on the big screen tv there. I think his thought here was "really mom? Are we done yet?"
Ethan has been eating cereal and he has been doing really good with it. He is kind of a messy eater though... does he get that from the Sloan side? ;)

8 months

2010-12-02T15:57:00.001-08:00

Wow! Where has the time gone! Ethan is already 8 months old today. He is getting so big so quick! Today the goal was to get a family picture done so I could finally get Christmas cards ordered and hopefully have them out by Christmas (once upon a time I got them out right after Thanksgiving) but Ethan decided to take a nap and then Dad followed suite. So Ethan woke up but Dad decided to cuddle with him so both Ethan and Dad fell back asleep. They woke up... yep right when it got dark out. So no family picture done yet...

At 8 months old Ethan is....

-Sleeping through the night... usually 10 hours (hallelujah! Do you see the lights shining down!)

-Eats 5-7 ounces of mom's milk

-Loves to stand with our help

-Getting better at sitting but still needs our help

-smiley.... and OH SO smiley right away in the morning... love waking up to this little boy!

-loves to watch videos on the computer... we will pull up clips of disney movies and lately Christmas videos

-Health is doing great... no medications and hasn't gotten sick ... yet (crossing our fingers through the season!)

-loves to watch the dogs... laughs at them when they walk by him

-~~Sooooo close to rolling over from his back to belly~~ actually he did roll over on Wednesday and again on Saturday!

-found his toes... so cute! I love how he reaches his toes and then rolls to his side

-babbles... loves to chit chat... at times I think he says hi or mama but then I don't know if that is just mama's ears ;)

-loves to grab on to things... mom's hair, the neck of our shirts, his pant legs, toys, blankets

-moving into 6 month clothes... I put some wranglers on him that were so cute... they were 3-6 months but way too long but too tight in the belly... poor child doesn't have height going for him... my mom says he has a chance of height from my dad but since that is his only glimmer of hope I doubt it ;)

-He did get to see his aunt Lori and Uncle Matt, Aunt Holly & Uncle Scott, AND grandma n grandpa Sloan the other night... on Skype... Ethan seemed pretty interested in it but we went past his bedtime so he got sleepy

-He definitely recognizes our voice... when Mark comes home from work he looks at him and smiles and the one time I left for the day he smiled when he heard my voice again... then when he has a dr. apt or and apt with the pt he just stares at them

Thankful

2010-11-25T10:17:00.000-08:00

I started to write this post on Thanksgiving but thought "oh I need to add a picture before I post it" and well now I am getting around to adding a picture ;)

Mark had to work this Thanksgiving so we actually had our Thanksgiving dinner the night before. It was so yummy! It was even complete with mom's homemade lefse that she shipped to us so that it would get here just in time (she knew it wouldn't last til Thanksgiving if she sent it earlier ;)

A few things we are thankful this year...

Ethan! He is doing so well and the best part is... he is home with us for the holidays. We are really excited to start new Christmas traditions with our little one. It kind of stinks we can't be with our friends and family this year but I think Skype might help with that.

Internet shopping... without it I don't know how I would get my shopping done here in the middle of no where!

Mark... he watched Ethan last Tuesday so that I could go to G.F. to get my hair cut, a little shopping (a small dent in the shopping) and coffee with my NICU friend (Thanks Lindsey for meeting up with me... I so needed it!)

Mark's job... I am so thankful that we are able to have me stay home with Ethan. Who knows how Ethan would be doing if we had to put him in daycare.

Our friends and family.... we are so thankful for all the support and prayers from all of them through our rough times with lil E

Ethan took a little nap before the big dinner....

Ethan really wanted to get at the turkey...

A little smile I got the day after Thanksgiving...

Who Does Ethan Look Like?!?!?

2010-11-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to scan these baby pictures for awhile now but just getting to it. When Mark's parents came out in April they brought some baby pictures of Mark. At the time we looked at him and thought oh he is so cute. Well a couple months ago I went through them again and thought Oh my gosh...

Here is Mark's baby picture

Here is Mark at 3 months old
And here is me at hmmm.... maybe a year old?!?!? mom?
I think he looks like a little of both of us but he REALLY looks like Mark in his 3 month picture!

Here are few recent pictures of Ethan at 7 months (adjusted age of 4 months)

Ethan's favorite toy right now is his ugly doll that was given to him when he was born. Mark thinks this red outfit reminds him of thing one and thing two from Dr. Seuss.

It's funny because I didn't notice it at first but when Ethan was born he was.... well... a little scary looking. He didn't look like a "normal" baby because he wasn't done growing yet. In another NICU mother's terms... he was half baked. Your Thanksgiving buns won't look the same when they are only half baked either! But once Ethan started to put on weight and go wireless he started to look like a "normal" baby. And to me that baby looks like Mark. What do you think? Does he look like Mark, me or ~~the~~ ~~milk~~ ~~man~~ um I meant neither? LOL!

Today is....

2010-11-17T07:32:00.000-08:00

Prematurity Awareness Day. We have many friends having babies now so I have debated on weather I wanted to post anything about this as I don't want to scare anyone. But what is awareness day if you try to keep the facts away from people. You don't see woman not talking about breast cancer awareness because their friends have breasts do you? So... I have decided to post on this topic today.

This is some information that I found on the March of Dimes Blog.

In the United States, more than half a million babies are born preterm each year. Preterm birth, birth before 37 weeks gestation, is a serious health problem that costs the United States more than $26 billion annually, according to the Institute of Medicine. It is the leading cause of newborn death, and babies who survive an early birth often face the risk of lifetime health challenges, such as breathing problems, cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities and others. Even infants born just a few weeks early have higher rates of hospitalization and illness than full-term infants. The last few weeks of pregnancy are critical to a baby because many important organs, including the brain, are not completely developed until then.

For some women, labor starts too early, before 37 completed weeks of pregnancy. One out of eight babies in the United States is born too soon. This can lead to serious health problems for the baby. So it’s important to know the signs of preterm labor.

I was at a prenatal care appointment 5 days before having Ethan. She gave me a sheet that had one paragraph to read about the signs of preterm labor. I looked at it and put it in my purse without reading it. My thought "preterm labor... yeah that's not going to happen to me."

Weeks after having Ethan I went to a follow up appointment with the Dr that delivered Ethan. He happened to be the specialist in preterm births. He told me that I went into labor due to an incompetent cervix. He said that it was probably caused by a test I had done when I was 18 years old. I had an abnormal pap smear so they scraped my cervix to do a biopsy. This could have been done a little too harsh for my cervix to handle.

He also informed me that if we chose to have more children in the future that he will use a cerclage. He said that it is almost 100% gaurantee that I would be able to carry full term. If we do have another one (which is still up for debate) he said that I would have to have a c-section due to the way he had to deliver Ethan. Funny thing is before I had Ethan I thought "I am going to have my baby naturally and with no drugs. I will not need a c-section." Now my thoughts are "Hmmm c-section... that means I most likely will know exactly when I am going to have the baby and living in the middle of no where this is a plus. The recovery from the c-section was loooong but Mark liked watching the delivery and I felt no pain." So if the Dr. ruined my chances of having a natural birth because of the way he had to deliver Ethan I am totally ok with that. Especially since I have Ethan in my arms doing very well.

Here is the information on the March of Dimes blog:

Cervical insufficiency

The phrase "cervical insufficiency" (CI) refers to a cervix that opens too early, before the baby is full term. This condition is also called incompetent cervix. The cervix is the opening at the base of the uterus.

When the cervix is healthy, it thins out and opens at the end of pregnancy when labor begins. The baby then moves through the cervix and birth canal (vagina) to be delivered.

With CI, the cervix opens without labor starting. Usually the woman has no symptoms. Few women know they have cervical insufficiency until they have a miscarriage or premature birth. The woman may deliver the baby without feeling contractions.

For women who have had a pregnancy affected by CI, the condition is likely to happen again in later pregnancies.

Causes
Medical experts do not always know why incompetent cervix occurs. Theories include damage to the cervix during surgery, injury during a previous birth, and exposure to certain drugs.

Cervical length appears to be a factor. The shorter the cervix, the more likely the woman is to have cervical insufficiency.

Screening and diagnosis
Medical researchers have not found a reliable way to routinely screen women for cervical insufficiency. If a woman has previously lost a pregnancy in the second or third trimester, vaginal ultrasound exams during the next pregnancy may help predict whether a woman is at risk of preterm birth.

Treatment
Doctors sometimes recommend:

Bed rest and reduced physical activity. While these methods are common, medical research has
not proven them to be effective.
Pelvic rest. The woman should not douche or use tampons. She also should not have sexual
intercourse.
Cerclage. The doctor puts a stitch in the cervix to keep it from opening too early. The
stitch is removed when it is time for the baby to be delivered.

While spending a lot of time in the NICU I talked to other mothers and asked what caused them to have their baby early and a lot of them said preeclampsia so I decided to copy what March of Dimes had on that too since I don't know a lot about it.

Preeclampsia

High blood pressure and preeclampsia
Chronic hypertension is high blood pressure that is diagnosed before pregnancy, or before the 20th week of pregnancy. This type of high blood pressure does not go away after delivery. Medical experts do not fully understand what causes chronic hypertension. Genes, diet and lifestyle may play a role.
Hypertension may narrow or tighten the blood vessels in the uterus that supply the baby with oxygen and nutrients. Hypertension during pregnancy can create severe risks for both mother and baby, including:

Health problems for the mother, such as heart attack and stroke
Slow fetal growth and low birthweight
Increased risk of preterm delivery
Placental abruption (separation of the placenta from the uterine wall during delivery; this can cause heaving bleeding and shock, placing both mother and baby in danger)

The good news is that with proper prenatal care, serious problems associated with chronic hypertension can usually be prevented. In fact, most women with high blood pressure have healthy pregnancies. However, about 1 in 4 develops a dangerous condition called preeclampsia.

Preeclampsia
Preeclampsia is a potentially serious illness marked by high blood pressure and protein in the urine. If untreated, it can become a rare, life-threatening condition called eclampsia. Eclampsia can cause seizures and, in some cases, coma. Fortunately, eclampsia is rare in women who receive regular prenatal care.

After delivery, a woman with preeclampsia may need to stay in the hospital longer than usual. This is done for the safety of both her and her baby. To learn more about the risk factors for preeclampsia, see the fact sheet High Blood Pressure During Pregnancy.

Pregnant women should be on the lookout for these warning signs:

Headaches
Vision trouble
Quick weight gain
Swelling of the hands and face
Pain in the right upper belly

What you can do before pregnancy
If you have hypertension, see your health care provider before trying to get pregnant. He or she can help you get your blood pressure under control before you're pregnant. Your provider can also check to be sure that the drugs you're taking are safe to use during pregnancy. He or she can tell you whether you need to change any of the drugs before becoming pregnant.

Here are some other things you can do before becoming pregnant:

Work with your provider to lower your blood pressure.
If losing weight will help control your blood pressure, use diet and exercise to help meet your weight-loss goals.
Take your blood pressure medicine as prescribed.
Quit smoking. Smoking damages blood vessel walls. It is especially dangerous for people with high blood pressure. Smoking also harms your baby.

What you can do during pregnancy
To protect your health and the health of your baby during your pregnancy:

If you have high blood pressure, tell your health care provider early in your pregnancy.
Go to all your prenatal care visits.
If your provider tells you to, check your blood pressure and weight at home.

For those of you wondering... Ethan is doing awesome. He is now off of all of his medications. He is breathing great, moving around, gabbing, sleeping through the night, a-dor-a-ble, reaching for things, follows things with his eyes, loves books, loves to sit and stand with our help and smiles when he hears our voices. Of course he is also doing the things that most people take for granted that were huge things in the NICU... eating, peeing, pooping, keeping his temperature, and pink in color (no jaundice). We always think Ethan is right on track with the "schedule" but then we meet up with a therapist and they say "yeah, he is right on track... with his adjusted age." They say it takes up to 2 years for premature babies to get back on track with the schedule. Heck, that is a-ok with me. After everything that he has overcome and achieved he is doing spectacular in our eyes!

Prince Ethan....

2010-11-09T20:28:00.000-08:00

So Ethan has been grabbing at things more lately. Today he started to grab at the little mirror that hangs above him on his little gym. The mirror reminds me of the mirror from Snow White. So I said to Ethan "Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all? Well prince Ethan of course!" And every time I said this Ethan would give me a huge smile and kick his legs and throw his arms... it was so adorable! (No I didn't get a picture of it as I was folding laundry at the time ... the multi-tasker that I am (not!) But here are a few pictures that Mark took yesterday....

Soon his hair will be long enough to gel ;) Right now he has 3 long hairs that go to his nose. I plan on cutting them but they are sooo cute. They remind of me of Charlie Brown! Of course I have to get a good picture of those hairs before they get cut off because that would technically be his first hair cut... {tear} why do they grow up SO fast!

1st Halloween!

2010-10-31T22:05:00.000-07:00

Today was Ethan's first Halloween! Of course with having to keep Ethan away from a lot of people we didn't do much but that didn't stop us from dressing him up! We found out that I was pregnant exactly 1 year ago tomorrow. And as most of you know I LOVE to shop sales. So the day after Halloween finding out we were pregnant I had to find a costume for our baby! So this costume was a size 3/6 because my thought process was "well he will be 3 months but I have a feeling I am going to have a big baby so we better go on the bigger side" ha! Well it still fit pretty well. It was a little big in the hood but I am pretty sure it would have been no matter what. Mark and I took some pictures outside with our little giraffe. Mark pointed out that I picked a good costume for him since he can make the noise of a giraffe... nothing ;) I dressed Ethan up and then walked the dogs and this is what I came home to....

Talk about a family blooper! I couldn't get this again if I tried! We have tried a few times to get the WHOLE family together for a picture and man it's hard to get the dogs to look where you want them to but this time Dakota was wanting to walk around... Kiara and Ethan look a little annoyed with the idea but Mark and I thought it was funny!
(note: I did try to blur Dakota's "icky" as a friend of ours calls it but it didn't hurt him I promise! lol!

Wet Kisses

2010-10-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a little video Mark caught on his phone. Yes Ethan is not afraid of sporting pink like his father is! (Long story but he should be getting a blue one soon;)

Enjoy!

Wet kisses from Leah Sloan on Vimeo.

My Boys

2010-10-16T18:21:00.001-07:00

I got a chance to edit a few pictures and I just had to post this right away! I love it! All 3 of my boys chilling on the floor. (No I don't love Dakota more than Kiara... he just happened to do this so how could I not take a picture!) And since Mark is at work I know he would be happy to see this too ;)

Happy Birthday Honey!

Surgery Complete...

2010-10-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

Well Ethan went in this morning for his surgery. Another day full of doctors and medical staff... glad that is over! Ethan could't eat 4 hours before surgery so he had to be done eating by 3am since his surgery was at 7. So of course he woke up at 1:30am and he was very hungry so I nursed him shortly to hold him over until 2 when I had the alarm set to feed him. So I fell back asleep and woke up at 2:45! Ahh my heart was racing thinking oh no I need to get him good and full in 15 minutes! So I ran around got him a bottle ready and fed him and was done by 3. Decided to lay back down to try to get some more sleep and overslept that alarm too but woke up at 4:15 and ran around to get ready. Then we were on the road shortly after 5.

They originally told us to be there by 6am but then said we really don't need to be there til 6:30 because all we would be doing is sitting in the waiting room. So 6:30 was fine by us and we got there right on the dot. They took us back to the recovery room and started the paperwork. It started off with a woman coming in (I did not see her wash or sanitize her hands) and started to ask us questions. Like what kind of medications he is on, what does he eat, when was the last time he ate today, and he was full term right? Eek?!?! What did you just ask? Um no. He was 3.5 months early. Oh really. Ok. Any surgeries? Was he in the hospital then for a little bit? Um a little bit, yeah I would say 113 days is a little bit. So then she wanted to listen to his heart beat. Still no cleaning of hands and I didn't say anything. Then more doctors came in and out and then they were on the phone with other people talking about Ethan where I could hear them (not to mention everyone else). So then they came in to give him a shot in the leg to help with pain. The nurse didn't clean her hands. This one I asked if she would since she was going to be giving him a shot! She had no problem doing that and said she completely understands and that she cleaned her hands before she got the shots.

So then onto the anestesiologist. She came in to introduce herself and said that she was going to read over his file and be back to talk with us. When she walked out it looked like she had a witchcraft book in her hands. You know the huge books that takes all your body weight to carry. Later we found out that that was his medical records! So lets see, you saw the book full of his medical records and you see that he is a baby and you assumed he was full term?!?!? Anyways, then the doctor came in. He said "So are we ready?" Um, well you tell me? Then he said "do you have any questions?" Um, well maybe. At this point I would have thought he would take the time to review what he was doing. But nope. So then they decided they should do a blood test to make sure he is not anemic. So they poked his heel. He just sat there (if you remember they did this a lot to him in the NICU.) Well she didn't get enough blood so she had to poke him again. This time he screamed! It was so pittiful! Oh I hate seeing him like that! But he calmed down pretty quickly once the mean lady was gone ;) I had Ethan dressed in a little halloween sleeper that my mom had sent him. I thought it was a good time to be festive ;) The operating nurse came in and she had a halloween scrub hat on. She of course liked his outfit. It was weird to see them taking him to the operating room. The bed was just a full size bed so they didn't roll him on it. One nurse rolled the bed while the other one carried him. You see, every other time he had to go anywhere (ie the plane or other NICU rooms) he had to be rolled in a intubater or an issolette. SO off to the waiting room we went (after a few tears from mom.... this was the first time leaving him since he has been home and now they were going to cut him!)

So Mark and I sat in the waiting room. We ended up sitting right outside the door that doctors and other patients walk out of. To get out of the door you have to push a green button and then turn the door knob. The sign is really small on how to operate it though. So of course when we walked out I was like running into the door then trying to turn the knob 100 times until Mark saw the green button. So we laughed. Only this was the first of many laughs. We were not the only people that did this. So while we were sitting there we would see someone walk to the door and basically run into it trying to get out. It was hilarious e-v-e-r-y-t-i-m-e! Maybe you had to be there ;)

So the surgeon came out after an hour and told us the hernia surgery was complete. He did well. He said that he thinks that when we flew to Seattle to have it reduced in May that he thinks it ruptured the sack. There was not a sack there. He had to do a little bit more surgery on the left one because of it. He said it increases the chance of it reocurring later in life but hopefully it wont. He then said that he was unable to do the circumcision because um well um... the equipment was not big enough for Ethan. So of course there was a little laughing but then he said that he had to have another surgeon perform the circumcision because it had to be done a different way. So eventually that surgeon came out and said everything went well and now we had to do a follow up appointment with both surgeons. He told us that he was out of the operating room and that they would be coming to get us shortly.

So once we they took us back to his room we found it empty. Um ok. So we stood there for a minute and then they came down the hallway. One was rolling the bed and another was holding him. They handed him over to me and the one nurse walked out. So I was standing there holding Ethan who was SCREAMING and naked wrapped in 2 big bulky blankets with blood on them. The nurse that was in there was so worried about wrapping his toe to see what his oxygen levels were. I was worried about getting situated to where I could feed the poor little guy. Then she decided she needed to get his temperature. She scanned his forehead and said "oh its 99.3 but it's probably high because he is crying." Um, yeah, so why did you just take it now. How about worry about getting him fed and then he will calm down and then you can take his o2 and temp. I was a little upset too when they brought him in because they had a bottle that they said they tried to give him but he didn't want it. Well no *%&*$ shirlock.... he doesn't eat formula not to mention I did not give you permission to give him that! It says every where on his paperwork that he is breastfed and I know I didn't give you any milk! Really people?!?!? (sorry, this still irritates me!)

So then the nurse left and the oxygen machine kept beeping because the pulsox was not on his toe. It continued to beep and no one came. Yeah, that's nice. So eventually she came in and we asked if she could turn it off and of course she did. (How she still didn't notice the beeping when she cam in I have no idea.) Well then she said well we can get this IV out and you can go home. I said, um well the anestesiologist said that we need to stay for the day because of his history. She said "oh she didn't tell me that." So then she left. Later she came back and took some things off of him and said that we can stay as long as we want. (Oh yeah, because I really WANT to stay here...no it's for his health!) So then we told her we were in no hurry because we didn't want to get home and have to go to that emergency room since we didn't have a good experience there before.

Later I ran to a few stores while Mark held Ethan as he slept. I guess the nurse decided to have another nurse take care of us. She came in to check on Ethan since he was screaming and asked if he had any tylenol yet. Mark said no. SO she got him some and almost instantly he was better. Hmmm tylenol. Yeah I might want that too after getting cut! We found out the new nurse used to work in the NICU and she was telling us how pediatrics really scare some people (I think she might have been specifically referring to the original nurse.) Which is fine. I don't think I would want to deal with children in the hospital either but for goodness sakes if you are not comfortable with it DON'T DO IT! That could have explained why she brought us some adult wipes and not baby wipes. Why she asked if we wanted the breastmilk microwaved and why she seemed to take better care of us vs Ethan.

So eventually Ethan had woke up and ate a bottle, his eyes looked back to normal (they were dialated at first), and he seemed just tired. So we headed home. He has been recovering like the champ that he is. He is back to himself for the most part. He still isn't eating his full amount of food but I don't blame him. It took me forever to get back to normal after having him. Which, by the way, his hernia scar looks just like my c-section scar! We thought it might put him a little behind on his rolling over and sitting up but nope. He is moving like he was but now he is almost rolling over from his back to his tummy too! Not yet, but close.

Thank you everyone that emailed, called and texted for your prayers, best wishes and speedy recovery. It means a lot to us. I have some pictures to post but that is taking some time to get to. So hopefully soon.

It is also Mark's birthday today! Happy birthday honey! I took some cute pictures of Ethan and daddy this morning that I hope to post soon as well.

My projects...

2010-10-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

So I have always wanted to refurnish furniture just like at one time I liked the idea of remodeling a house. Well I decided to try a few things with a couple pieces of furniture that I found at goodwill. We already refinished 2 night stands for our bedroom I just haven't got around to taking pictures of them. So here are my projects before....

Mark thinks the chair is ugly no matter what I do to it. Whatever. It's going in my scrap room since he stole my other chair and my new chair is going to be fantabulous and he is going to be jealous! The end table is almost done. It it going to be a storage space for some of my photo albums as well as a night stand in the spare room. I will be posting the after pictures soon!

You might have noticed I changed the music on the website. If you didn't notice that means you have your volume off ;) I decided to put music on here on the day my dad died (well 9 years later anyway). That's why daddy's hands was the first song playing in case you were wondering... or getting annoyed with the song! So now with Ethan's surgery coming up I decided we need to jazz it up a bit. I need to go into a happy place (well I am in a happy place everyday with my 2 boys and my 2- 4 legged friends) but you know what I mean. Funny thing is when I started to add different songs I really got the urge to go on a cruise! Not tomorrow or anything but I have always wanted to go on an Alaskan cruise. Has anyone went on one with tips of what to go for and what not to? (Hey, a girl can dream for now ;)

I have been without my camera now for 2 weeks! I had to send it in to have something fixed. Funny thing is how I am without my camera. I have 2 point and shoot cameras and hate them both. Actually couldn't figure out how to turn the flash on the other day. Who would have thought you just pull the flash up?!?!? Then I thought, ugh, I am not going to have my camera for his surgery day! Good new though people! It should be here tomorrow! Just in time ;) I can't wait to have it back. It's like I have been missing my puppy, my left arm, my espresso machine, my computer, you know what I mean! Am I the only crazy one that doesn't quite function well without something?

Surgery Soon

2010-10-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

I realized that I haven't posted any information on Ethan's upcoming surgery. It was supposed be done and over with by now but the Dr. decided it would be best to do it in the middle of October so Ethan is a little older. He will be getting his circumcision and his inguinal hernias fixed. It will be next Thursday in Great Falls EARLY morning. We have to be there by 6am which means we have to leave the house by 4:30am! They do the babies first thing in the morning so that they have all day to recover and hopefully won't have to spend the night. If you recall the hernias were the reason for our second emergency flight to Seattle in May. They were able to reduce it without surgery and since he was so little and his tissues would be like sewing tissue paper together they like to wait until they are past their due date a ways. So of course I will post updates on how it goes. We are hoping this is the last surgery Ethan has to go through!

Here are a few pictures from my little point and shoot camera....

Ethan wanted to be cool like his daddy....

I just LOVE Ethan's face in this one!

Maternity Shoot

2010-10-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I did a maternity shoot for someone that had a big part in Ethan's life. I was excited when she asked me to be a part of her life and document her beautiful baby bump. These two were so much fun to photograph. She is going in today to be induced and their baby girl will soon be in this world! These are just a few of my favorites....

I hope everything goes well and I can't wait to see the little one!

I Took One For the Team

2010-10-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

So when Ethan was in the NICU another NICU mom would refer us to Team Ethan and hers Team Eli. It was cute. Well I definitely took one for the Team Ethan yesterday. So we went to the Dr for Ethan's 6 month checkup which of course included some shots. (Poor kid has 3 more to go since I am spreading them out... evil mom!) So they did his measurements and he was 10 lbs 13oz. Crazy to think he still doesn't weigh as much as I did when I was born. Yeah, I was a BIG baby. So then the Dr. had someone with him that he was training. He was telling her how kids born at Ethan's gestation age has a 50% chance of making it. If they do make it they have a 50% chance of not having anything wrong with them. So all in all you have a 25% chance that the baby will be fine. He said that Ethan is completely normal and that we are very lucky. Yes, yes we are! He also went on to say that we are doing a good job as parents as he can see that Ethan is quite social and that I spend time with him, talk to him and smile at him. Of course I know we are doing a good job but it's always good to hear! Ha ha! In reality though, I worry that I could always be doing more for him.

So then the nurse finally figured out what shots Ethan has already gotten and when so she came in with the ones he needed today. (Found out that the hep b that they normally give babies right after they are born was not given to him until he was 2 months so he is a little off the normal schedule. Which is totally fine with me. Kind of happy to hear that actually. I don't think little E's body needed to take on anything extra when he was born.) Along with Ethan's vaccination she came in with 2 for me as well. (I was planning on only getting the tetanus shot since there has been an outbreak of the whooping cough (and the whooping cough vaccine is in with the tetanus). I was past due for the shot and of course I want to protect Ethan. So then the Dr said wow that is a good idea. Go ahead and give her the flu vaccine too. I was like wait, what? I never get the flu vaccine and I have never gotten it. So of course he responded with "you need to protect him." So I look at our precious little boy and think buck up mom, take one for the team!) So, on with the story. She came in and gave Ethan his shots first and he cried. And when he cries these days there are tears. It is so sad. And when he is really upset he pouts with his lower lip out. It melts my heart. I almost started to cry. Then it was my turn. So I was holding Ethan and she gave me one shot and then it hit me what was going on. I realized with my fainting history I better put him in his car seat. Well, no fainting. I think the LOOOONG stay in the NICU watching them poke and prod Ethan has made me stronger. Well, I hope so. I really don't want to be fainting when Ethan falls and scrapes his knee in a few years! After the shots were all done Ethan fell asleep pretty quickly. The plan was to run to the grocery store real quick before going home. Yeah, I could barely carry the car seat to the car. So we headed home. And then I cried. I don't know why. I don't know if it was because both of my arms (yes, armS, one shot in each!) hurt like a *&#^*#(*&!^*&&^#*$&#!$#@% or if I was thinking about how lucky we really are to have him or if they inserted some pregnancy hormones with those shots. I couldn't figure it out. I haven't cried for awhile now. Which is good. I cried daily when he was in the NICU. I think there were a few cries after he was home from lack of sleep. But now. Now I have been happy. Really happy go lucky happy. When I got home last night Mark asked "so I want to know... who cried more from their shots, you or Ethan?" Ha ha, really funny honey! Then this morning I woke up to feed Ethan and my arm hurt even worse. So I told Mark that maybe he should call in because I am not feeling well and my arms hurt. He said "ok, I can do that." I said "well that would mean that you would be taking care of him all day to help me out." His response, "well I better get in the shower to go to work." Hmmm. For some reason after watching a little Regis and Kelly and hear them whine about their arms hurting from the shot I feel better. I don't feel like such a wimp. But now I think, I have to let them give our baby a flu shot? OMG... how is he going to manage the pain? Well, he is doing better than I am today so I have a feeling he will take the flu shot like a champ. Funny thing is, Mark needs to go get a flu shot too. Is it wrong that I hope his arm hurts worse than my !@$$#%@&!*&@$!# arm?

6 months!

2010-10-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

Dear lil' E,

Today you are 6 months old! I can't believe it. You have grown sooo much sooo quickly! You truely are amazing. You have fought so hard to get where you are today. You are a miracle. I love you so much. Today I spent the morning oohing and aaahhing over you. You were full of smiles for me and I was just filled with joy. More like a little giddy! You are so much fun. Lately you have been:

starting to drool
sleeping 6 hours at night
eating breast milk only
smiling
working on sitting
starting to like rattles
love your gym mat
playing air drums with dad
reading, signing and singing with mom
wearing size 3 month clothes
you are 2.5 months adjusted age
cuddling (I love it... please don't stop this ;)

I am so blessed to be able to stay home with you. I get to see you change day to day, cuddle, make faces with you, read to you, sing songs and so much more. I love it when dad comes home and says hi to you and your eyes just bug out and look around. Sometimes you even give him a smile ;) I have to say life is pretty sweet!

I love you little E and I am so proud to be your mommy!

Happy 6 month birthday!

Rolling over... caught on video!

2010-09-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Here is a little video of our little man...just remember I never claimed to be a videographer!

Untitled from Leah Sloan on Vimeo.

We are going out for dinner...

2010-09-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

We found a new babysitter. He goes by the name Dakota. Loves kids. Gives lots of kisses (kind of sloppy ones.) Really doesn't mind the smell of dirty diapers (actually kind of loves it.) Very alert. Little hairy but overall pretty darn cute. His fee: a little scratching and some bare feet to lick!

Dreaming a little

2010-09-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

So this morning Mark was sleeping and I was in the bathroom across from the bedroom brushing my teeth. I saw Mark sit up in bed and then look into the pack n play next to the bed. (Ethan was not in there.) So he was looking in it over the top and then laid down to look into it from the side so I stood in the doorway wondering if he was awake or not. So then he looked at me and I said what are you doing? He said "where are the restrooms?" I said "What?" followed by a huge laugh. He said "whatever, are you going to tell me where the restrooms are or not? We are having a baby." So of course I continued to laugh and start to spit toothpaste everywhere. He laid back down and said "I hate you. Fine I'll just spill milk everywhere?" I was still laughing but in the bathroom spitting my toothpaste out. I went into the bedroom to get something and he was completely out. Like nothing happened.

He had his first physical therapy appointment last Friday (the 17th.) The lady came to our house which is really nice. She did some tests to check where he is at developmentally. She said he was doing really good. He was tracking her face as she moved around, he heard sounds from all directions, he lifted his head while he was on his belly and he even rolled over for her. For some reason though Ethan doesn't want to follow a red ball with his eyes. No idea why. He tracks faces but wont track a red ball. So we are working on that. She has also showed us ways to help him move towards sitting up. One thing she mentioned though I got a little upset about. I know, me, shocker! Well his head is a little flat on the sides from being in the NICU for so long and laying on his sides. She asked if the NICU used a halo. I said not that I know of, what is it? Well it's this circle thing that you lay his head in so he doesn't lay his head from side to side. What makes me a little irritated is that he has been out of the NICU now for 2 months and not one person has mentioned this to me. Not one. He has been to his pediatrician numerous times, had the quality of life over a few times, the county nurse... not one of them said anything about it. Why didn't we notice you ask? I don't know. We talked about it. We knew that it happened to babies in the NICU but we didn't think Ethan's was like that. I think it was part parental fog. You know... our baby is perfect fog. So now Ethan has sleep with his head propped so he is looking straight up instead of laying on one side or the other. This is to ensure his brain doesn't get funny shaped.

Then last Sunday I ran to the store and as I was coming in Mark jumped up off the floor and said "you just missed it!" I said "what?" He said "he just rolled over like 3 times and the last time was as you were walking in the door!" Oh yeah... I missed it again. But at least Mark saw it. Then he was doing it again on Monday! Yeah. He goes in streaks though. I think we just have to get the timing down on when to put him down for tummy time.

So here are a few pictures of our little man...

This last one... I love it. I know. Cruel isn't it. I was actually trying to take a picture of both of us with the go go gadget arm but this is what I got. And I love it.

Has it always been this difficult

2010-09-15T14:12:00.001-07:00

to raise children! I am not talking about the discipline part, the lack of sleep, the wash your hands a bazillion times and use sanitizer, no what I am referring to is the medical part of it all. We have been home now for almost 2 months. Hard to believe! Time does go fast. In those 2 months though I have had issues with every medical provider we have dealt with.

Lets start with last week. We were supposed to go into see the pediatrician but then they realized that they didn't need to see him til he was 6 months (so in October.) Well then it got me thinking about his 6 month shots. I want to have them done separately. Not all in one day. It is a lot for the immune system to handle. And he has to have a synagis shot on top of that (for the RSV.) So I asked if the public county nurse would be able to do it (to save some extra trips to Great Falls). They said sure. So I called her up to make sure. She said oh yeah that is not a problem. I said that I wanted to spread them out. She asked why. I explained my concern for uncertain facts about vaccinations, how it could be a toll on Ethan, and if nothing else it would ease my mind. She then went on to tell me that she went to a seminar and they said that there is nothing wrong with vaccinations. Oh, ok great lady. Yeah you changed my mind now. Not! So then she got really snobby and said that I would be doing Ethan more harm by taking him to the office 4 times vs 1 time to get the shots. Followed by "I think it would be best that you do your shots with your pediatrician because I have signed an agreement that I would follow for such and such regulations and by spreading them out I would not be following them." Well I kindly ended the conversation and said thank you. I then hung up and started to bawl. It is so frustrating. It is my right as a parent to decide weather or not I vaccinate my child. If I chose to do so it is my right to spread them out. Seriously people! It is so frustrating. Mark is by my side on this too if you are wondering ;) So we will be doing a few trips to Great Falls but that is so worth it to me. So let me point out to you that I am not one that says "NO vaccinations" obviously since we are vaccinating him. But I do find some facts very interesting. One that I read the other night was: "In 1983 we had ten shots on the vaccination schedule. Autism was one in 10,000. Today there are 36 vaccines given. Autism is nearing 1 in 100." Did you know that hep B is one of the first vaccinations given? Do you know what hep B is? After I read what it was it made me think "and newborns need this why?" They can get it later on when their immune system is stronger. Even like 10 years old. I really wish I could take my child to the doctor and know that they know what they are doing. Sit back and relax. But nope. You really can't these days. It truely is best if you do some research as to what is going on with your child and what the doctors are doing.

Now the most recent thing. So Mark has talked about a friend that has a child that was on prevacid for a long time. Mark didn't know too much about it but knew that it had caused him issues. Mark had brought this up to me awhile ago but it was hard to make anything from it because he didn't know much. Well the other night he started talking about it again and the parts that he did know I was able to piece together because of the reading I have been doing. Mark still didn't make sense but because of what I had read it did. Well I decided to jump on the internet to look it up. Prevacid has been linked to cause a leaky gut which can cause food allergies as well as an exhausted immune. I had forgot to give Ethan his medication at 8pm that night so I said well we will give it to him when he gets up next. Well then after doing some reading I said "let's see how he does without it." You see, I called the pediatrician last month to see if we could take him off of it and he said lets wait to see how is doing at his next appointment and then we can take him off. Well that was originally set for Sept and now it is changed to October. So we went the night without it and I called the pediatrician to see if we could take him off of it now. His nurse called back and said that he thinks we should keep him on it until the next appointment. So of course at this point I got a little irritated since this was the exact same thing he said last month only he thought we would be in last week! So I continued on with telling her that I did take him off of it now for 18 hours (by the time she got back to me) and he was doing fine and that I read that prevacid has side effects and that I want him off of it asap. She said that she would talk to the Dr. and give me a call back in the morning.

Well now it is the morning and I didn't get a call back. So I called them. Oh there was a note in the records stating that the Dr. ok'd it for him to go off the prevacid! What! Really! So I just needed to INSIST that he say yes its ok to stop the medication. Really?!?!? I am soooo frustrated! So if it wasn't for me telling him that I had stopped it and was looking for an ok my baby would have to stay on the medication for another month when he really didn't need it! So should I have INSISTED last month? Is it my fault that he was on the medication for the last month now? I don't get it. I really like our pediatrician but in this instance he has failed Ethan and he has failed me. I don't want him to be on medication that he doesn't need. Don't doctors understand that medicine is not natural? And they wonder why there are more children with autism, ADD, and many more that are not coming to me right now. I am not a doctor. I don't research a TON but I do read articles and I do read books. I would like my doctor to think of Ethan as one person, think of him as his own child, and think OK what is the benefits of keeping him on the medication and what are the benefits of taking him off. Now we still have the nebulizer... the breathing treatments. I have no idea what I can do about it. I have told them that I want him to take a picture of his lungs at his next appointment and send it to his lung Doctor in Billings to see if we can reduce the treatments or even stop them. If for some reason this isn't done I will be calling the lung doctor myself and would be willing to take a trip to Billings if I have to. Hmm... calling him now doesn't sound like a bad idea either.

Oh and Ethan has been wire-less for more than a few weeks now. Love it! For some reason the monitor is still here though. They were supposed to pick it up a few weeks ago. Another great customer service experience on that too but I won't bore you!

And now for what you are really looking for... pictures!

This next one I took of Kiara when I was just playing around with my camera and then found it later... I like her reflection in the door ;)
Just love this next one... he looks like he pooped his pants!
And for something you weren't expecting....

I am taking a class on-line to learn to take self-portraits. A lot of it is repeat stuff to me but at least it motivates me to take some pictures of myself as I don't get on the other side of the camera much. I plan on doing more of Ethan and I soon. Just doing these pictures is a lot of work. It means I need to get in the shower before the sun goes down! You laugh but I am not kidding. Most days it seems like a major accomplishment when I get a shower in!

Another Post... Already?!?!?

2010-09-07T21:20:00.001-07:00

I know I can hardly believe it myself. I am getting to post another post on the blog already! Let's make it quick before he wakes up!

So here are some pictures of him smiling at me the other day....

I love the faces he gives when the dogs start sniffing him... oh the fun Ethan will have with them soon!
So instead of heading towards Whitefish we decided to drive around here to find some places to take pictures at. We found some really cool spots. Here are just some pics I took along the way...

We took Ethan for his first wagon ride today and he loved it... until we stopped! He loves the bumpy rides!

Alright time to feed him... hope you enjoyed the pics!

Celebrations....

2010-09-02T09:33:00.000-07:00

So Wednesday (September 1) was our 3 year anniversary. Thanks to all the emails and texts to wish us a happy one. It is amazing that it has been 3 years! Since Mark's schedule is all goofy we ended up deciding that I would just make dinner and we would head out of town towards Whitefish on his next day off for dinner. Mark decided to get a guitar for his present (also his birthday present.) It was a good deal and he thought "well I never had the time to learn and now I do." When I told this to his sister her response was "well most people that have a newborn at the house think that it's a great time to learn a new instrument!" Yeah, I know. It was quite cute though when I walked into the living room he had Ethan on his play mat and he was learning some lullabyes.

And Thursday.... well Thursday we celebrated Ethan is 5 months! 5 months! Where has the time gone. Oh yeah, it was in the NICU and traveling Washington and Montana. I just can't believe he is getting so big! Thursday we had the nurse come to weigh him and he was 9 pounds 3 oz! Uff da! He did roll over again the other day but of course I didn't see it... all. I did see the last 1/2 second when he was landing on his back. He is quite determined though when we have him on his belly. I have a feeling it will be very soon that he is rolling over all the time. What's really funny is when he is hungry he starts to lick my neck! Ethan was given a nice wagon to ride in but it has been cold here lately. We are hoping to get him out in it in the next few days as it is supposed to warm up.

Yesterday I put Ethan on his back and all of a sudden he was full of smiles. Smiles! It melted my heart! So of course I pulled out the camera to catch some of it. He also started to follow me with his eyes. You don't know what this means to me. My heart has been aching because he hasn't been smiling much lately. He had smiles in the hospital but it was more like sleeping smiles. The eye doctor said that he wouldn't start focusing on things and following them until October and that if he didn't that I needed to call him so he could check on him. So this means a ton to me. It was so much fun! Then I had to run to the store so Mark played with him while I was gone. When I got back he said that Ethan was quite "talkative" when I was gone. Of course... why not when I am gone!

Here is my opinion on diapers for those that may have thought "I wonder what kind of diapers Ethan uses?" LOL! No but really. We used pampers in the NICU. So of course that is what we bought for when we came home but we had a few boxes of huggies from people for presents. For whatever reason I had it in my head that pampers was better. Well we decided we liked the huggies better. No real reason we just did. Well then we ran out and we needed to pick some up in town. Well they didn't have huggies in his size so mark picked up some pampers. I can't tell you how many outfits I have been scrubbing poo out of because they have leaked out the sides! Ugh so annoying. So for those wondering... we use huggies little snugglers ;) I would love to hear other thoughts on diapers!

Random updates....

2010-08-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

Ok Ok I know it has been a little while since I blogged! I am sorry! It is so weird how I think I can say "it's been crazy around here" and then try to explain why it has been crazy and find no way to explain it! So I will just try to put everyone up to speed as to what has been going on.

So after Ethan rolled over .... he hasn't done it again. He has been trying really hard though. He gets to rocking back and forth on his belly and he really wants to do it but just hasn't got it yet.

He weighs 8 pounds 12 oz. His newborn clothes are getting too small so he is starting to wear 0-3 months.

I took Ethan to his eye appointment in Billings by myself since Mark couldn't get off work. I was really nervous about it but it went well. Ethan did great! The eye doctor said that his eyes look better than last month but they are not 100% mature but he doesn't worry about it. He said that he will just check him in March and then yearly after that. (He originally said February but I asked if we could do it in March for 2 reasons.... there is a slight chance the roads will be ok but then I realized winter here lasts til May! and because the RSV season may be over but then again I realized that we live in MT and it probably lasts longer!) I also found out that the eye doctor is doing a report with the other pediatrician opthomologist in Missoula about babies like Ethan. Ethan is a special case though. He is the only baby that they had transferred to them to do the surgery but once we got there his eyes looked better and didn't need surgery. When we were transferred to Billings the doctor had the laser all set to go with all intentions of doing surgery! Ha little did they know Ethan has been one of those "rare" cases for many things.

At Ethan's last check-up the doctor looked at his umbilical hernia and said that he didn't see any issues with it and that it is quite small and will go away. Mark and I have noticed that it has gotten smaller since leaving the NICU. The doctor said that his belly button is the first one that he saw go out at an angle though. Yep, just another "rarity" with Ethan.

On our trip to Billings I learned that I need to brush up on my lullabies... maybe a little singing lessons wouldn't hurt either! I was belting out songs for Ethan when he would start to get fussy and surprisingly it calmed him down. There was a little Twinkle Twinkle, You are my Sunshine and If you're happy and you know it entertaining little E.

I hate the shopping around here. That is the only reason why I don't like living in the middle of nowhere BUT I have learned that I LOVE internet shopping! I love finding great deals in the stores.... I am a shopper that heads straight to the clearance rack and then browses the other racks after. So shopping on-line you are almost gauranteed to find the best deal. And the best part... when they show up at your door! Love it! It's like Christmas! I ordered a baby yoga book and I was thrilled to see it at my doorstep today. Another NICU mom had looked at it and said that it was worth reading so that is what I am doing. Later this afternoon Ethan and I will be doing a little R&R baby yoga style! The bad part of on-line shopping is when you track the package, find it is to be at your house today and it isn't here yet. So now, I am impatiently waiting for my espresso machine to show up ;) It is our anniversary next week and Mark bought me the espresso machine as a gift. I am soooo excited to use it! Not to mention being able to have a latte EVERY morning! AHHHH! The simple joys in life!

I also have to say a huge thank you for all the gifts that have been sent our way. It has been truely amazing. I did one round of thank you cards before our first trip to Seattle and now I am starting to finish them. See, I mentioned that I love on-line shopping and getting packages but it is like Christmas when you see a package and you didn't order anything! We have gotten so many cute clothes, books, stuffed animals, toys and homemade quilts. We have enjoyed it all. It means so much to us. I was a little bummed that I would not be able to have the baby shower in WI that was planned at the end of April but you all showed so much support and love through mail the only thing I missed was the cake.... and well Ethan took care of that since I ate A LOT of desserts in Seattle ;) Thank you all so much!

Speaking of desserts... so I was watching the food network and saw this awesome lemon cake dessert. SO I decided to make it. You know, it was completely from scratch and I got to use my fancy tools from pampered chef that I have been wanting to use for the last 2 years. It turned out awesome. Looked great. I altered the recipe so that it didn't have mint in it because Mark doesn't like mint. So we each had a piece. Loved it. The next day Mark went to eat lunch and for dessert he grabbed..... not a piece of the lemon cake but a cup cake! Yep that's right. A man who shows appreciation for some home cooking. And even better.... he did it again the next day! I ended up eating the whole freaking thing (except the one piece he ate after baking it). Yeah so I think I am either not going to bake anymore or wait until I know we have company coming.

Speaking of company.... I know we have told many of you that we are not going to have visitors until next spring. This isn't because we don't want to see you. Because we really would love to see all of you! Ethan's immune system is very weak. We need to protect him. We have been able to take him out to a few public places but we are very crazy about what we touch and cleaning our hands. Preemies are at high risk for getting RSV. Many people don't know what this is so I decided I should post a link to inform anyone who is interested. If you click here you can read about it. It is even worse for preemies. Many preemies get it and end up back in the hospital for weeks and sometimes months. We really want to avoid this. Ethan does qualify for a shot called synergis. From what I understand it will make the RSV less severe if he were to get it.

And then there is the company that we have to have. The medical staff. Oh how it has been interesting. There have been public nurses and quality of life staff here. I have had to ASK each one to sanitize their hands. I put the sanitizer on the coffee table and dinner table so no matter where we decide to hold the appointment it is right there. The last one that came into the house went straight to Ethan who was doing tummy time on his gym and was awwing over him as I was watching her every move I saw her little paws reach for his hand and I yelled "don't touch!" and then grabbed the sanitizer and handed it to her. Um yep.... that's me. So maybe nobody really wants to visit us right now anyway ;) It's crazy to me because each medical person I have asked to sanitize right before they touch him respond with "oh I did wash my hands before I left the office but sure." Well lets see. What did you touch from washing your hands in the office to coming to our house. A door handle to leave, the handle to your car, your car keys, your purse, probably fixed your hair or put on lipstick, more door handles, pens, briefcase.... yeah so if you don't mind sanitizing your hands I would greatly appreciate it! See, I may sound crazy but I am ok with that. After spending many many days in the hospital watching my baby fight for his life.... yeah I am ok with being crazy.

One of those people came over to evaluate Ethan and see how he is reaching his "milestones." She will be back next week to tell me how he did (you know, after she puts it in the computer and the computer spits out how he is doing.) She has a wealth of information though... so she says. She does teach baby sign language so of course he will be taught that. She is also looking at getting me a book on baby massage. Both Mark and I really like her so hopefully the meetings go well with her.

Ok one last thing. So somewhere on the blog I mentioned starting him on food. Well I got a couple responses with that. At first I was like well I am going to do it if he thinks he is ready because I don't want to hold him back. Well that was stupid thinking. It is just food. Getting him started on food before he is a year old is basically just for fun. There are many studies going on about this topic. A friend of mine pointed out the study about the leaky gut... basically leading to autism. Anyway, what I realized was that I really like this blog. I liked hearing what other people had to say about it. For some reason I felt "well I have preemie, the one that knows best for Ethan is the doctor." Um, no I don't think that. I think it is a team thing. Me (and Mark of course) and the doctor. The more information I have on these things the better I can make decisions. So I am encouraging anyone that has 2 cents to share on any topic I put on here... please do so. You can comment or email me.

Here are a few pictures from Ethan's spa day... aka bath time :)

I didn't get the memo...

2010-08-17T18:39:00.001-07:00

that today would be the day that my baby would .... ROLL OVER! Yeah, that's right. He rolled over. And... of course we didn't see it! Mark put Ethan down on his new gym for some tummy time and went into the kitchen. I was next to Ethan but multi tasking between watching him, pumping and reading my email. Yep, but I missed it! Mark and I were talking and then I looked down and he was on his back! Yeah! We were all so excited we rolled him back over and cheered him on to do it again. Did he? Nope. Of course not. Mom and Dad were watching why would he do it then! It's so exciting yet kind of scary. We are already at the rolling over milestone?!?! Didn't we just get home from the hospital? Ahhh he is already 4.5 months old! When they say it goes quick it sure does. Quicker than a blink of an eye.

Yesterday we decided to take a little road trip for dinner. The doctor ok'd us to go to public places but not busy places and only til the middle of September since that is when RSV season starts. So we headed to Craig, MT. It was suggested to us from a friend. The drive there was awesome. It was very scenic. Mountains and rivers all the way. We went to a place called Isaak's. The food was great. The town was pretty small... compared to Romance, WI. It had a couple bars, a couple fly fishing shops, and a restaurant. I believe it is know for great fly fishing. Did Mark take his fly gear? Nope. I think he should next time we go some where though because it seems like you can fly fish almost any where around here!

This is just picture I took when we had to pull off to feed Ethan on the way back.

I love this picture... sure it's not the greatest quality but I just love the look on Ethan's face.. it's like he is saying "we didn't do it mom!" Funny thing is is that I think he will be saying that a lot... and soon!

Almost 8 pounds!

2010-08-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

So I am a little behind on blogging.... again! So on Tuesday we celebrated Ethan's 1 month birthday. See... he gets 2 birthdays. He has April 2nd, the day he was actually born and then he has July 10th, the day we were expecting him. This date really doesn't mean anything but for awhile I think we will be referring to his actual age and his corrected age. With preemies they tend to fall behind on the usual "milestones" with babies. This is why they also refer to his corrected age. Since the first 3.5 months of his life he was still doing the growing he would have done in the womb those months don't really count in his growth. However, yesterday we had a follow up appointment with his pediatrician. Ethan weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces! Almost 8 pounds! He also said that next month we will talk about starting him on solid foods! EEK! I was like, what?!?!? But then he told me that with term babies that you typically start them on solid foods between 4-6 months and next month Ethan will be 5 months and he really doesn't see him far behind the "schedule." So that was good to hear. I am considering making Ethan's baby food. If any one has done this or knows more about it I would love to hear your suggestions and tips on it.

Ethan has also had a few moments that he has just been sooo cranky and wont stop crying. Well I think we have figured it out. He wants more to eat! He left the NICU eating 50ml. Sometimes he will only eat 40ml but other times he eats 120+ml! We are still trying to figure him out but another mother told me that once we do figure him out he will change! What! I thought things just got easier! He has also been fussy when we lay him down at times. Such as in the middle of the night he wakes up fussing so I pick him up and put him on my chest and he falls asleep. My mom says she is sorry. I said, why? She said because that is how I was. I wouldn't sleep anywhere but on my parents chest so she said to me when I was little "I hope you have a baby just like you." Yeah, thanks mom ;)

The doctor asked me yesterday if I wanted to get rid of the monitor. I said yeah but not yet. He laughed at me. Well we have been decreasing his caffein slowly. He was at 2.2 ml and he is now at 1.2 ml. He will be off it completely in a week or so. Then I would like to have the monitor for another week just to make sure. I am crazy like that. He doesn't need it. I just like to make sure ;) He told me next we will try to get him off the prevacid for his acid reflux. I would like to get him off of this soon too because a friend of ours had his baby on it for awhile and it caused some other issues because it prevents your stomache from making its natural acid. I don't like having him on medications. But it is hard. When we were in the NICU we were just like "do what you have to do to make him better." I just think some NICU's tend to use medications as an answer vs. others. But now that he is on them we have to ween him off.

I love this picture. Notice his legs in the air. He has been lifting his head and moving and while doing so he tends to be balancing on his belly!

Well, we can't always have happy baby pictures ;)

Just chilling in his pack and play. Mark picked up a new binky for him but he doesn't like it. He likes the one the hospital used and that is it. Good thing they sell those at Target in case we lose all the binkys they sent home with him.

You can sort of see the monitor in the background here. It is put in a little tote so we can just carry it around our shoulder. It has a long cord to it which is nice so you have some room to move with it but it can be dangerous when walking if we are not careful.

Spending some time in our backyard...

Is he not the cutest?!?!?!

I just want to point out that posting these pictures took over an hour to load. Why? Well when you live in the middle of no where the internet doesn't work if it is raining. Yep, I decided to load the pictures while it was raining! Oh the things you take for granted!

Interesting day...

2010-08-04T11:47:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was quite an interesting day. It started out with nursing Ethan. He choked. Nothing new. He does this... not as often as he used to but he still does it. So I sat him up and patted his back... this usually does the trick. Well then the heart monitor went off because his heart rate was dropping! So Mark ran over and took Ethan from me, flipped him so his belly was on Mark's hand and hit his back a few times, flipped him over, yep still not breathing so he flipped him back over and hit him a few more times and one last time... flipped him over and he was breathing. Yep, nothing like testing out your CPR skills!

Then I was feeding Ethan from a bottle (don't worry... it's still my breast milk) and he was eating away. Then all of a sudden he looked at me and aackkk! He spit up all over me and all over him. Ethan does not spit up at all. This is the second time that he has spit up and well, both times they were HUGE spit ups! So I went to change his clothes and mine. Of course now that his belly was empty he wanted to eat some more!

Then I went to change his diaper and he was all over the place. He was crying and fussing. And he decided to pee... all over! Ok, well he didn't get the walls or me or anything but he got it all over his clothes, the changing table and barely his new diaper!

Oh I wish the excitement stopped there. Mark is now on the 2pm shift. So I went to bed at 10:30 before he got home. Ethan woke up at 12:30 and I found Mark still awake so I asked him to take care of him so I could still get some sleep. So of course he did. Well then I woke up with him at 4. All was good. Then at 5:30 Mark came to my side of the bed and was standing by Ethan and he kicked me. I woke up a little upset because that was kind of rude. He said "what needs to be done?" I said "what are you talking about?" He said "well does he need to be changed or fed or what?" I looked at him all confused and said "why, is he crying?" He said "well, no." I said "well he should be fine then." He got all frustrated and said "well if you want my help you better take advantage of it now since I am awake." So by this time I realized he was sleeping and didn't know what he was talking about so I just told him to turn on Ethan's giraffe that makes noise. So he did and then Mark went right to sleep. Only for Ethan to wake up and start crying! I couldn't get him to go back to sleep so I was up with him... thanks to Mark. Mark remembers none of this! This sleeping thing for him is kind of scary to me. Recently there was a bear attack by Cook City, MT (yes, right around where we got married) and a bear took 3 people out of there tents! 1 died but 2 lived to tell their stories. Well as I am told, one lady said that she was sleeping in a seperate tent than her husband because her husband snores so loud. Well, he snores so loud that he slept through his wife screaming as she was being attacked by the bear! It kind of makes me wonder what Mark would do. Now don't get me wrong I have no doubt in my mind that Mark would do everything in his power to save Ethan and I from a bear attack... if he is awake. Now what would happen if he was asleep? Say he went to bed upset with me for some reason. Would he throw me to the bears? LOL... you laugh but I am kind so serious!

Today we took Ethan on his first walk. We haven't bought a stroller yet so I walked with him in the moby wrap that was sent to us as a gift. Ethan loved it and so did I. It was nice to have him close to me especially since there tends to be lose animals around here so I just felt like he was safer.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks...

This is the nurse walking us out of the hospital...

Us... right before leaving the hospital...

Dakota....

Ethan doing some tummy time while Dakota watches him.... Dakota would really like to lick Ethan all over but we won't let him... poor dog ;)

4 months!

2010-08-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it. Today Ethan is 4 months old! It is so crazy how time flies by. I kind of expected time to fly by when you have a baby but honestly I didn't think 3.5 months in the NICU would also fly by! Although these last 4 months haven't been "picture perfect" Ethan has been perfect to us all along. It is amazing how far he has come. What a fighter he is. All the things that he went through. We are so thankful that we have been blessed with him.

So we had another Dr's appointment today to get some more shots. Yeah, great way to celebrate huh! We have come to love Ethan's pediatrician and today we got to chat with his nurse and we love her too! Mark told her that he truly believes that you should have to get a license to be able to have children. Then he continued with... "and I am not sure we would pass!" Maybe he was thinking of last nights incident when he said this. So on Mark's days off we have decided we will share the night shifts. So last night Ethan woke up and I poked Mark and said "it's your turn." So he eventually got up and I was drifting in and out of sleep. Well then Ethan was crying again and Mark was crawling into bed. So I asked him if he fed Ethan. He looked at me and said "no, why does he need to be fed?" I said yes, did you change him? He said "no, does he need to be changed?" I said "well what were you doing?" He said "oh I got myself something to drink!" I started to chuckle. He couldn't figure it out. He didn't remember me poking him to get up to take care of Ethan! And remember the monitor that Ethan is on. Well it is really really loud. So loud it will wake the neighbors... but not Mark! There have been times that we switched sides of the bed in the middle of the night so he can be closer to Ethan when it's his turn. Well the alarm will go off and I will jump up in bed and have to shake Mark to get him to check on Ethan and turn off the alarm! It takes Mark awhile to get his body to really "work" after sleep. One of these mornings I am going to wake up with Ethan's diaper on his head or something!

Ethan has been a little extra cranky these last few days so we started thinking that maybe he is teething. Mark looked at me like I was crazy when I mentioned it but once I looked it up on the internet it said that preemies may start to teeth as early as "term" babies at 4 months. The Dr. isn't convinced of it because Ethan is still fighting the acid reflux. He has also told us to start weening him off the caffein. Once he is off the caffein we can stop with the monitor! yeah!

And of course with hitting the 4 month mark comes a 4 month picture... ok well they are his "newborn" pictures in my mind since I haven't been able to do any of the fun pictures in the hospital... this is just one of them

What's Been Going On...

2010-07-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

So Saturday was our first full day at home. It was so nice. We did a lot of chilling around the house mixed with cleaning and organizing for this lil man. We did hear some sad news on Saturday as well. There was another baby in the NICU that was born shortly after Ethan. I never talked to his parents as they live in Great Falls so they were never in the parent lounge. I did know a little bit of his story though. Well, this little baby passed away on Saturday. I feel so bad for that baby's family. It's amazing how much I know about the "dark side" of having a baby now. I call it the dark side because it was something that I tried hard to ignore until it was staring me in the face. It has been trying at times but I wouldn't trade one moment of it. As much as I would like to think we have been here to make Ethan strong I really think Ethan was the one making us stronger. Stronger as husband and wife and now strong as a whole family.

Sunday morning we got up early to head to Billings for Ethan's eye appointment on Monday. It was our first day having to get out of the door by a certain time (we had to drop the dogs off at the kennel and we had to be there right on time since she was coming in as an exception for us). Mark figured if we had to leave the house by 8:30 that he could just get up at 8. Ha! He quickly realized that he is not the only one he has to get ready. Getting things ready for a road trip and an overnight stay took a lot of work from both of us. We surprisingly made it to the dog kennel in time and no alarm going off (we had to take both vehicles to G.F. so I had Ethan in the back seat of the truck and I was just so worried that the alarm would go off when I was driving!) So Mark joined me in the truck once we got to G.F. One of us sat in the back with Ethan at all times. Well when Mark was sitting in the back he fell asleep. Ethan's alarm went off. I freaked. I yelled for Mark since he wasn't up right away (how he could sleep through the alarm I don't know because it is loud!) So once he woke up he said "what!" I said "check on Ethan!" So what does Mark do? Well he started to climb up in the front seat! He was so out of it from sleeping that he thought Ethan flew out of his car seat and was on the floor in front of the passenger seat! Well, to his defense I did point to the front seat when I screamed like a mad crazy person for him to check on Ethan. So Mark finally realized what was going on and Ethan was fine. Oh Mark!

Oh and remember we were all worried that he was constipated. Yep, once we got to the hotel he let it rip. His diaper was FULL! Then all of a sudden he had an appetite ;) We were never so happy to see a diaper full of poo!

So we spent the night in Billings since his eye appointment was on Monday at 1pm. (It is a 5 hour drive from Shelby... without a baby.... with a baby it was more like 6.5) The eye doctor said that Ethan's eyes are not completely developed yet but that they most likely will be in a month. He wants us to go back in 4 weeks to just have him check them one more time to make sure nothing crazy happens. Ethan did really well for the car ride to and from Billings. On Monday he really didn't have that much of an appetite... until we got to G.F. We stopped so I could change him (yeah, I learned how to change diapers in the car on my lap from this trip ;) and feed him. Well he didn't want to stop eating! Of course, right when we are an hour from home! So we chilled in G.F. for a good hour so he could eat ;)

Monday we had an appointment with his pediatrician. We got up bright an early since the appointment was at 9am... so I thought. Once we got there we found out it was at 12:30. Yeah, not sure where I got 9 from! So we drove around G.F. til the appointment. Well Ethan has his breathing treatment due in the morning and I took the machine and everything with so I could give it to him on the way down to the appointment. Well the machine was a little too much for the plug in adapter to handle. Since we can't go in to public places with him we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. Well, we found a plug in on the outside of a car wash building. Mark plugged it in and hung it outside the window while I was in the truck giving Ethan his treatment! What we don't do for this child! ;)

Ethan started off at home with some bad sleep patterns. He was getting up every 1.5 hours and not necessarily to eat or to have his pants changed. Just to be held. I guess I don't blame him. Spending so much time in the hospital. Sure I was there a lot but not during the nights. Last night he actually did really well. I had to wake him up at 1am to feed and change him but he didn't want either and kept sleeping. He woke up at 330 and 630. Pretty good for me! Bad part was Mark and I really did get any sleep though. The monitor kept going off. Not because Ethan wasn't breathing but because every time Ethan would move the leads (the things stuck to his chest to the monitor) kept coming off so the monitor would go off and it is really really loud and it doesn't stop until you fix the leads. Yes at one time I thought it would be nice to have the monitor as it would be a peace of mind for me but now, well now I am ready to get rid of it. It really hasn't alarmed to let us know we need to stimulate him. It has been all false alarms. False alarms that have made me mess my pants a few times! It is so loud and startling! Not to mention the instant thought of "do I need to do cpr!" Hopefully we will be able to get rid of it soon.

THEE day is finally here!

2010-07-23T17:50:00.001-07:00

So yesterday I walked into the hospital with all our plans set. I was to stay with Ethan in the morning, clean out the apartment, drive to Shelby to pick up Mark, Mark then would drive me to G.F. to "room in" with Ethan, Mark would spend the night with the dogs and then come and pick Ethan and I up on Friday morning. Well yesterday I walked into the hospital and the nurse asked me if we wanted to go home (yesterday!) I said "well I thought I HAD to room in one night with him before we go home." She said they figure we have spent plenty of time at the hospital to know Ethan and be ok going home with him. So what did I say... Nah I will spend the night with Ethan in the NICU! Yep, that's me. Don't want to take my baby home! Ha, not! We just had so much to do yet to be prepared for him and Mark had to work yesterday so by the time we would have got home with him it would have been midnight! So yes we stuck with the original plan.

So spending the night in the hospital last night was... well, interesting. There are many nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, and of course another NICU mom that we had to say our thanks and good-byes to. Of course they are not forever good-byes as we hope to keep in touch with many of them. So there was a lot of chatting going on and then Ethan was not wanting to sleep. So he fell asleep about 9:30 so I laid down at 10 only to have the nurse wake me at 11 because we are not to let him go over 4 hours without eating. So he barely ate anything so I went back to bed at midnight. Ethan then woke up every 2 hours. The bench I slept on in his room was not all that comfy either. Earlier in the day I noticed I was starting to get symptoms of mastitis (this was what I got on mothers day... makes you feel all weak, hot flashes, flu like symptoms) so I called my Dr. to get some antibiotics right away since I didn't want to feel all crappy on the day we get to take him home. (Thanks to the nurse in the NICU I got it right away ;) Then through the night I noticed that my back was hurting and it only got worse. I realized why... For some reason I got into the habit of arching my back when I have been nursing Ethan so it has caused a little pinch in it. Not good. Every time I go to pick him up it hurts. I am hoping it goes away soon.

So this morning Mark came to pick us up. We had to do a few things first. I sent Mark over to the gift of life to get the rest of my breast milk from the freezer. I left shopping bags there for him to throw it in. So what does he come to the hospital with... the 2 refrigerator drawers filled with milk! So of course we had to go back to the apartment to replace the drawers... what men come up with sometimes! So after doing a little running around we went back to the hospital to take our baby home! Ethan's favorite nurse was holding him and walking around the room to help pack things up for us. She escorted us to our truck and I really think she was sad to see us go. Of course we will keep in touch with her though. I sat in the back of the truck with Ethan for the ride back to our house. Mark looked back to find me crying. He asked what was wrong... just tears of joy. I couldn't believe it was finally happening. Our baby in our car going to our house! It has been such a long journey with so many tears and now finally tears of complete joy!

Once we got to the house the dogs were of course curious as to what was in the car seat. They did really good though. Ethan was cranky though because it was time for him to eat. So we ran around trying to find the breast shield (it helps Ethan nurse better) or the bottle that the nurse made up (we need to give him some breast milk with fortifier in it to help give him more calories). Once we did that I went in the nursery to nurse him. Mark came in with the bottle so I changed to that. Well the bottle had the wrong nipple on it. It gave Ethan too much milk and he started to choke. So the monitor went off (which is very very loud and scary because this time it meant his heart rate was below 80). The dogs were right next to me at the time, mark was on the phone to the vet (once we got home we realized Kiara had an infection in her eye so he needed to get that taken care of right away) so of course I am all crazy nervous and Mark hangs up the phone and runs over to us. Ethan was fine after I helped him through his choking but right after what did I do? Well I sat back and started to bawl and told Mark "I can't do this!" Yeah that's me. A little dramatic sometimes! I think I just got overwhelmed for that second with so much going on and only being in the house for 30 minutes before the alarm went off. Ethan is not on oxygen but they did send him home on this monitor so that it will go off if his heart rate drops or increases dramatically and if he doesn't take a breath for 15 seconds. Sure it is a little bit of a pain but really.... I am so glad we have it. It gives me that piece of mind knowing that if he did stop breathing I would know.

So Mark and I were all excited to be home together. We even got to watch a movie together! Well it got to be about 11pm and Mark changed Ethan's diaper and asked me to look at his umbilical hernia (he has 2 different types of hernias.) So I did and it looked much worse. He has had it for a few months now and it never looked so big. He hadn't pooped for 24 hours either so we called the NICU asking what they thought and they said that we should go to the ER in Shelby. So we did. I could say a lot about this little trip but I won't for a few reasons. Let's just say once the Dr. came in (since they had to call him in) and the first thing he said to us was "Well, I don't know a lot about umbilical hernias." Yep, needless to say we were sent home with no reassurance that it is fine. I think it is but it still concerns me that he hasn't pooped lately. I also did not see the Dr. or nurses wash or sanitize their hands before touching him. Sure they may have and I didn't see it but I am not used to that. Being in the NICU for so long you learn to be as clean as possible so this kind of got to me. Oh and so much more but for now I will not write about that.

Even though the first day home was a little stressful we are still so excited to have him home. Words can not describe how we feel. The journey that we have been on to get him this far has been a long one but he is soooo worth it. I look at Ethan in awe. I can't believe we made such a remarkable baby. Parents talk about how fast baby's grow and I agree with that. To look back at the pictures of him when he was born to now is just a remarkable difference. He truly is a miracle and we thank God every day for our little boy. We also want to say thank you to all of you that have kept us in your thoughts and prayers. It means a lot to us. And yes, I plan to continue this blog to keep all of our family and friends updated with all the fun adventures we will have!

Having a little fun ;)

2010-07-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

So I have been at the hospital for most of the day today so far. I had to run to Wal-Mart to pick up some diapers, bottles, and Ethan's vitamins. I dropped off his prescriptions so that they will be filled too. It is so exciting getting ready to go home! I am not nervous about going home but I am a little nervous for our first road trip on Monday to Billings. Any mom's out there have some tips on what to make sure we have? There is a lot of nothing between Great Falls and Billings.

I decided to play with the "photobooth" on my computer while holding Ethan today and this is what I got ;)

Ha! No we didn't have twins ;)

A dream becoming a reality!

2010-07-20T18:30:00.001-07:00

So today Mark and I got up super duper early so that we could be at the hospital by 8am so that I could breast feed him. He took 4 bottles last night and did really good on the first 2 but the last 2 he had a few spit ups and was pretty sleepy. So we did his cares and I started to nurse him while Mark went to rounds (this is where the dr. meets with the nurse and nurse practitioner to get a plan for the day for Ethan.) They sat out there talking about the steps that we need to do so we could go home. I was nursing while this was going on but Ethan was not eating much at all and he was really really sleepy. Then I realized he was breathing harder and he just wasn't acting his normal self. SO I put him in his crib and went to rounds. I told them that I would like a blood gas done (where they poke his heal for blood to check the oxygen in his blood). They said that while I was nursing they decided if he still does good that we will take him home on Friday! Yeah I thought... but then I thought well lets not get too excited until the blood gas comes back. SO they did it AND it was perfect. Yep that is right, I made them poke his heal now 3 times just to ease my mind. Sorry Ethan... OK I am done now. No more poking.... well at least by the REQUEST of mom. But hey, now we know. He is doing great! So the plan is for me to spend the night at the hospital on Thursday and then Mark will come to pick us up on Friday after he is done with work to take our baby home with us! How stinkin exciting is that! I have been dreaming of this day but it seemed like forever for it to come! We have to go to Billings on Monday to have his eyes checked on again by the Dr. we saw there last time just to confirm everything is still ok. They have been checking his eyes weekly here but they do it with a camera and then send it to the Dr. So now the Dr. wants to see him in person just to sign off on him as long as everything is ok. So that will be our first major road trip... should be interesting! Then Tuesday we have an appointment with his pediatrician in Great Falls just to get to know him and he can read over Ethan's book of medical history... he might want a month for this! Oh and Thursday... so they will be showing me how everything works for Ethan since he will need a little extra. He will be going home on a monitor (hallelujah!) so that if he ever stops breathing it will go off (and I know it is very very loud as Ellie had one while she was here ;) and then he will also have some breathing treatments that we will have to give him. Nothing major it just helps him breath better. It is kind of like what people with asthma use but since we can't use an inhaler on him we need a special machine to do it.

So yes, I am very stinking excited. Ethan is doing sooooo good and we will soon be home as a family. Mark, me, Ethan and our 2 puppies (no they really are not puppies since they are 2 and 4 years old but we treat them like our babies ;) I do know that there have been parents that have a date set to go home and then for some reason the baby decides to not eat or something crazy and their date of discharge changes so I am prepared that may happen but praying that it wont ;)

Almost there...

2010-07-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

So Ethan has still been doing really good. We have started checking a few things off the discharge list! Yeah... I never thought it would come! We have watched the 3 videos that are required of us to watch. One is Elijah's story (a sad story about shaken baby syndrome), a car seat safety video, and cpr. CPR. Yes, I have done classes in the past but now watching the video I was a little bit more into it knowing that I have a baby that may need me to save him! Ahh, scary! Oh and the car seat. We have it sitting in his room so that the nurses could check it over to make sure it is safe. Ahh, the car seat. I have been dreaming of the day that we walk out of the nicu with the car seat and our little man in it! Circumcision. Yes we need to have this done yet. If Ethan was born when he was term it would have been done before we left the hospital. Well now we have a little bit different plan. He has hernias still that need to be repaired but they can't do that until he is 50 weeks gestation so we will have the hernias repaired with the circumcision (2-4-1 deal ;) So good thing is is that we don't have to worry about it now but bad news is is that he will need to have a surgical procedure done in September.

This morning Ethan decided to pull out his feeding tube before they gave him his vitamins. The nurse was going to put it back in but I said well lets just give him his meds by the bottle and then I will nurse him since this is how we will do it when we are at home. So when we talked to the Dr. about what the plan was for today she decided we should try to keep it out. So that means breast feeding when I am there and bottle when I am not. Sounds like a good plan to be but some nurses I don't trust giving him a bottle. Yeah call me crazy but remember when he was put back on the ventilator a few weeks back... well right before that he was getting the bottle from nurses and I never saw it. SO it makes me a little nervous. The nurse that is on tonight though I am completely comfortable with so we are just praying he does well with it. Have I mentioned that he LOVES his swing! I am SO glad we have the same one at home... I have a feeling it is going to be a life saver! He has been crying a little more over the last few days but I think it is just because he is nursing and he doesn't eat as much as with a bottle so he gets hungry sooner. I am being stubborn and sticking with the 3 hour care times to feed him though. I don't want him to get in the habit of eating every 2 hours. Call me mean but really... can you imagine having to get up, feed for an hour and then lay down for another hour and then start all over again... hmmm nah, I will stick with 3 hours ;) Mark and I also met a friend of ours for lunch. She was a NICU mom that left me a few weeks ago ;) It was good to see her and Ellie... they seem to be doing great and loving their monitor. Ellie went home on a monitor that Ethan will go home on. I have been thinking how nice it will be to have that monitor to know that we have something telling us if he stops breathing. Kathy confirmed to me that it is nice. Sure we were both saying we didn't want to take our babies home on a monitor but in reality we are both thinking that it is a good thing.

PIctures

2010-07-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

So here are some pictures of what Ethan has been up to lately:

Swinging...

Cuddling with Dad while he searched the internet ;)

More cuddling....

More cuddling (he is laying on the burp cloth I made Dad for fathers day ;)

His awesome little outfit!

More dad time...

Before a sneeze...

After a sneeze....

There is talk of going home at the end of this next week!

The bottle again...

2010-07-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

So yesterday Ethan breast fed at 11am, 2pm, 5pm and 8pm! He did great at the first 3. At 8pm he took about half of what he should (which is now at 50ml's) so I just had the nurse put the rest in his feeding tube. Today the Dr. thought we should start bottle feeding him once per day. So I breast fed him at 8am and 2pm and then we gave him the bottle at 8pm. He did really really well with the bottle. Well up until he spit all over me! Good thing I was wearing one of the gowns from the hospital! The nurse thinks it was about 5ml's but it seemed like 5 ounces to me! Well then we looked at his face after cleaning up all the spit and saw his feeding tube coming out of his mouth... well the other end is going in his nose... yeah I turned my head for this one! She just pulled it right on out. He has had a few nights now that he has went tube-less because of him pulling it or spitting it out I guess. When he gets his food in his tube it is only over 45 minutes now! He has been liking his swing. He gets fussy once and a while so we have put him in his swing and it is awesome. So excited too because some great friends had the same swing sent to our house... I have a feeling it might be a god sent when we get home!

This morning they did some blood work so I asked them again to do a blood gas since he didn't do so well last night after breast feeding. Sure the dr. thought I was crazy but he completely understands. His daughter had twins in a NICU for 9 &11 weeks. And what did they find... everything is great! He said it was unnecessary blood work and that they are going to start billing me separate for the extra blood work so that we have to pay it out of pocket... he was just joking. He said that if it makes the parents happy and doesn't hurt the baby he says why not. Good thing too because it just eased my mind that he isn't going back on the ventilator one of these days!

Mark's sister Lori is getting married tomorrow in Wisconsin. We are both really bummed that we wont be there. I am sure it will be a beautiful wedding with some great times to be had! I am certain that they both understand why we are not there but we will be thinking of them and hope them a beautiful marriage. I can't wait to hear where they are going for a honeymoon (since it is a surprise to her and he hasn't told anyone) and I can't wait to see puppy pictures because I hear they are getting one once they get to WA... I love puppies... (NO, Mark we are not getting any more!)

I have pics to post but it is getting late and I need some sleep so that is the goal for tomorrow ;)

A change of scenery!

2010-07-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

Yeah! So Ethan is still off oxygen. He tried breast feeding yesterday and did really good. So we thought we would try it twice today. He did really good at 11:00 and then we fed him through his tube for his 2:00 cares but his 5:00 we thought we try the breast again. Yeah, he really wasn't into it. He just sat there and smiled at me! Seriously, I would tease his lip and then he would smile and I think he was fake sleeping! So after 30 minutes of trying I decided we better hook up his food through his tube so he didn't miss his feeding completely. It's ok though. He did awesome one time so we will try some more tomorrow.

We had yet another change today. Only a change in scenery this time and we didn't have to fly any where to get it! Since we got back from our Billings trip we were in a room without a window. I was kind of going insane. Mark told me that he agreed that it would be nice to have a room with a window again but thought it would be ridiculous if I asked. So I asked a nurse what she would think if I did ask. She said she wouldn't blame me. So a few other nurses thought the same thing so the request was put in. The rooms were full for a while but today there was a room open so they moved us! Yeah! I am loving the sunlight! I think Ethan is liking it too ;)

It is Mark's day off today so he got to see Ethan for the first time with no oxygen. Of course he loved seeing him do so well and less to worry about when you take him out to hold him. It's funny because Mark isn't used to being able to hold him whenever he wants to know. Usually we would have to wait until care times to do so. It's like Ethan reached his due date and said OK I want to be a normal boy! We are loving it!

We also found out tonight that our NICU friends that have been stuck in Seattle for the last 2 months are headed back to GF tomorrow! Yeah! That means Eli is doing better and they get to finally be home... well as home as home can get since Eli will still be in the NICU but might be Ethan's neighbor ;)

Still doing good

2010-07-12T20:23:00.000-07:00

So I am not sure if it was clear on the last post that Ethan is not on any oxygen! He has no machine giving him assistance on breathing! I talked to a few people that had read the blog but when I said that he was still off of it they were shocked so I thought I would clarify. He has been off of the oxygen for almost 60 hours now and doing good. We hope this continues. Of course he will have lung issues for a long time since he is considered to have chronic lung disease which means we still have to be careful on where we take him so he doesn't get sick. There is still a chance that he will have to go home on a monitor but hey... we will take no oxygen! He looks so good! After being off of it for 24 hours I requested a blood gas. This is just a simple test they do by pricking his heal for a little blood to see the amount of oxygen in his blood. They were expecting the number to be in the 50-60 range because chronic lung babies tend to run higher, normal is in the 40's and right before he got re-intubated it was 169 which was crazy high. So the test.... yep 48! I wanted the test done just to ease my mind that he was really doing fine without the oxygen assistance so we didn't end up with another surprise intubation process. The only thing we need to conquer now is eating. His food has been going in his belly over an hour and 15 minutes. He is at 50ml of fortified breast milk. Tomorrow they will cut this down to an hour. On Wednesday if all is going well it will stay at an hour and then we will also try breast feeding again.

He did get his hearing test done today. When the nurse told me this I was a little shocked. When I asked about it before they said that they do the test while they are getting ready for the baby to be discharged. So secretly I was thinking... ooh we might be going home sooner than we thought! But nope, she just had to do the test on 2 other babies so she thought she might as well do Ethan too. He passed! Yeah! One more thing checked off the list.

A Celebration!

2010-07-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

Today, July 10th Ethan is 100 days old! It is also his due date! Yeah... It's a boy ;) I was dreading the 100 day mark for some reason. I was so focused on how many days that we have spent in the NICU until my sister in law Lori pointed out that we need to focus on the fact that we have had 100 days to spend with our precious little angel. She is exactly right. Sure it would have been ideal to have him in my belly these last 100 days but instead I got to spend those wonderful 100 days with our baby and watch him grow. He means the world to us and he is getting so big (as I am writing this he is starting to cry and I am hooked up to the pump but the nurse came in to help me ;) These last 100 days have been a roller coaster for sure. They told us it would be but I never imagined it would be like this.

So just a few days ago they took out the ventilator and put him back on the high flow nasal canula. Today, well today he has been off any form of oxygen since 10 this morning and has been doing great without it! Yeah! We have told the nurses and doctors that we really want to take things slow... no not because we don't want to go home (can you believe a nurse said to me "you want him to go home don't you?!?!?!") but because we don't want to have a major step back like we did last week. So taking him off the oxygen... yeah not exactly slow and small steps to us! I expressed our concerns with the nurse and she explained it a little to me. The amount of oxygen he was on was 2 liters at 21%. 21% is room air so he technically wasn't getting any oxygen he was just getting air pushed into his nose. So it was just a little pressure and now he doesn't have that. They also have talked about the nasal canula is actually an obstruction to his airway so it almost makes it harder for him to breath. So anyway, no oxygen assistance for now and praying it won't change again but he is on some medications that could be helping him breath better. They could wear off and cause him to need oxygen assistance again but the doctor doesn't think that will happen. We will see. The Dr. changes again tomorrow so who knows what will happen.

We did have one visitor today that remembered his 100th day b-day and brought us a little birthday cake. It was good cake and always good to see her... I think Ethan would agree ;)

There was a little excitement in the NICU today as well. So I was holding Ethan and all of a sudden I hear a guy yelling and the nurses talking to him. I couldn't understand anything that he was saying but then I heard a nurse outside our room get on the phone to call for security. A few minutes later she called again and said they needed to get here immediately! OMG... I sat froze in my chair wondering what was going to happen. Anyone see the season finale of Grey's Anatomy... yeah that is what I was thinking! Anyway I guess what happened was it was a drunk father that went to the OB floor to see his baby and since it wasn't up there the nurses brought him to the NICU and let him in even though the secretary here was making gestures to them to not let him in. He was not supposed to be in here and of course you are not allowed in the hospital drunk anyway. So 2 other fathers stepped out of their rooms ready to take action if needed and of course that just upset the guy. Security finally came and he was escorted out of here. No one got hurt and then all the nurses were chatting in the hallway with a little nervous laughter. Mark's response to this story... "so are you ready to start carrying a gun with you?"

Um... no but thanks for asking honey!

Here is Ethan after our celebration with champagne... oh I mean breast milk ;)

I just love this little outfit (It says Daddy's little and then it has a monkey on it... I know you can't see all of it) it was a gift from someone great reading this ;) ! I have to say I think gymboree has become my new favorite place for clothes... and you can find great sales there... anyone who knows me knows that I love a good sale!

This is Ethan's hang out place. Notice the giraffe in the corner... it plays sounds like water falls and a cool beat with a lion or something... he seems to like it along with the mobile from the hospital.

This was on Ethan's door this morning... so cute!

And of course the cake ;)

Half Crazy All for the Love of You

2010-07-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

Ok so today they decided to drop his feedings to an hour and a half. It was at 2 hours. But since this wasn't decided til about 9 this morning and we thought the Dr. with the scope was going to be here at one this didn't start until about 4:30 when he got fed again. They wanted to make sure his belly was empty when they put the scope in. The throat dr. was super nice and the results are good... or bad depending on how you look at it. He didn't find anything wrong... great! Bad news... we still don't know what caused him to have to go back on the ventilator. It's a little frustrating. They want to start bottle and breast feeding him again. I have expressed my concerns and have insisted that we take the feedings slow this time. No need to rush it so we take a huge step back again.

I have stopped eating dairy for the last few days. I have read that dairy through the breast milk can affect babies with acid reflux. Many dr's and nurses have told me that it wont make a difference but I figure it won't hurt... and I found out that I actually like my lattes with soy! I have also made sure that his multi-vitamin has b-12 because certain kids don't get enough of it. I ran across a blog today of a photographer in Austin that I follow. Her child has had breathing problems and has gotten worse lately. It got to the point that it was scary and a few trips to the ER. The dr's didn't have any answers really and just shrugged it off. Well once she posted on her blog about it another woman emailed her with info on magnesium deficiency. Long story short she gave her child magnesium rich foods and found that he was better almost immediately. They have turned to a holistic doctor for more answers. Sooooo I looked to see if his multi-vitamin has magnesium... looked to see if his milk fortifier had it.. yes. Also found that this same child was given an asthma medication which was causing his magnesium levels to drop. Found out that the medication that Ethan is on does just that but in larger doses. Sooooo asked the doctor about it and she said that we could test his magnesium level if it would ease my mind but that would mean taking more blood from my little baby. She said that the blood work they do to check his electrolytes has the amount of phosphorite and they kind of go hand in hand. So if the phosphorite level changed that would give them reason to check the magnesium. She also said in her 20 years of doing this she has never see that before. Well it has been said that none of these doctors have seen a co2 in the blood shoot up to 169 but Ethan's did. So I continue to wonder. Continue to think... is it something they are missing. Or was it just a fluke thing that he had to go back on the ventilator and now he is bigger that it wont happen again. I don't know. It is so hard to sit here and want to start feeding him again and work towards going home but it is also hard to not know if feeding is what caused him issues before.

I went to the book store today to pick up another book to read and I found my quote. "Half crazy all for the love of you." It's part of that song... daisy daisy give me your answer do I'm half crazy all for the love of you. When I saw it I was like "hey that is me." Yeah I may be the crazy lady that asks the nurses all these random questions because of my "internet medical research" but really that is all I have. The doctors don't know. You always hear those stories about how things are misdiagnosed or missed and I just don't want that to happen to Ethan. So what... call me half crazy but I do it because I love our little man and he deserves to be able to eat from the bottle or breast and breath at the same time. I have been thinking of putting a warning sign outside Ethan's room "Beware... crazy mom inside"

Here are some pictures while he was on the ventilator...

And back on the high flow nasal canula!

Checking his airway

2010-07-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

Well Ethan was put on the high flow nasal canula yesterday. They started him out at 4 liters and now today dropped him down to 3 liters. He has been doing really good with it. He is really cranky though. They think it is from the medication he was given. Hopefully it wears off soon! They have an ear, nose & throat Dr coming in today to check out his upper airway. They will be putting a scope down his throat to take a look. Hopefully they will see what caused him to go back on the ventilator. I don't want something to be wrong but I do want an answer for the cause of it. They have the ventilator ready in his room in case something happens while the Dr. is scoping him. They just want to be ready. They said that he may have a spasm in his airway when they are scoping him which means they would have to put the tube back in. We are hoping that doesn't happen!

Another Day

2010-07-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

So they started Ethan on medication yesterday to help him off the ventilator. We were hoping that would be today but I had my doubts (when the Dr's change plans tend to change.) So this morning they did his weekly eye exam and they gave him morphine for the first time for it. Last week he didn't do so hot with his eye test so they thought this would help him. Well it helped him but it also made him out of it for awhile so the Dr. decided to wait until tomorrow to extubate him and put him back on the high flow nasal cannula. They said that if he pulled it out himself tonight that they would put him on the high flow at that point. I asked "how about I just pull it out and hand it to you." It was hard to see him on the ventilator when he was first born but it is really hard now. He is bigger. He looks like a "term" baby. He looks like he is ready to come home. For some reason though if I tried walking out of the hospital with him I don't think it would go so well (trust me... I have thought of many ways of doing this ;) Well when I was holding him tonight he pulled at his tube and I ended up screaming for a nurse and pushing the call button. (Oh how I thought of just letting him finish pulling it out so they would put him on the cannula but I just couldn't do that!) Things like putting off being extubated for another day just gets to me. I asked why they couldn't do it later at like 5 when he would be awake from the morphine wearing off. She said no because she wanted to make sure she was there in case anything happened. Then she said "another day won't hurt." Yes, as a matter of fact another day will hurt. We are creeping up on that 100 day mark. And that hurts! I so so so badly want to go home with my baby. I know there will be challenges when we are at home (ie... getting up at night, doing daily chores, and having no nurses) but I am so up for that challenge. That challenge will be nothing compared to these last almost 100 days! Seeing Ethan take a step back and having to go back on the ventilator is very hard. Praying he gets off the ventilator tomorrow and onto the nasal cannula.

Ups and Downs

2010-07-03T16:09:00.001-07:00

So it has been a few days since I have had a chance to post on the blog. Lets see if I can bring everyone up to date. On Tuesday he was doing so awesome. They decided to put him on the low flow canula at 1/16 liter and 100%. This was upsetting and confusing to me at first because we have been trying so hard to get his oxygen at 21% (which is room air) because it affects his eyes otherwise. After talking with a few nurses and the doctor about it I understand it more. It's a good thing. It's what he would go home on. I guess the machine that he goes home on you can't adjust the amount for the oxygen just the liter amount. On Tuesday night the nurse tried feeding Ethan a bottle and he did great. He took the whole thing in 20 minutes! He even got moved down to 1/32 liter which is the lowest it goes! Wednesday morning we called to check in on him and he was still doing great. So we headed to Glacier for the day. It was awesome. The weather was perfect and one of our favorite nurses was taking care of Ethan so we were able to enjoy ourselves. We went to lunch at Lake McDonald (we don't recommend it) and then went for a hike to see Avalanche Lake. It was awesome but we found out there was a bear seen on the trail. It was a 2 mile hike in and 2 miles back. We heard this news when we were in about 1 3/4 miles so we weren't turning back! I hiked 3 times as fast on the way back though!

So Thursday we went to the hospital to see our little man. They decided that he needed to go back onto the high flow canula because he was just working to hard at eating that he needed more help breathing. This was of course upsetting to me. I hate the high flow because you have to be careful when you move him or he gets water shot up his nose... just a defect in the machines I guess. So Thursday night they we tried breastfeeding and he did great. Then while I was gone that night they decided to try his food over an hour. They said he did great with that.

Well then comes Friday. I got there and he just looked wore out. He didn't look good at all. I continued to say "he really looks like he is having a hard time breathing." The nurse agreed with me and talked with the dr. and nurse practitioner. They said oh we will just see how he is throughout the day. His oxygen was ridiculously high for him. He was at 3 liters and 5o%! He has never been that high on the high flow. Then he didn't want to even try breastfeeding, didn't want anything to do with his binky and his eyes were lifeless. He did not look good. I finally asked to talk to the dr. He was gone so the nurse practitioner came. I asked if we could do some tests to see what was wrong. She said we don't like to do that until he shows that he needs more support. I said well he obviously has something wrong, why would we wait. She said because there is cost and there is pain involved. Well cost is covered by insurance and the pain... well he is in pain now trying to breath. So she ordered the tests basically to make me happy. I was really surprised by this because she usually hears me out and looks more into why I would be saying this. She then took 2 steps farther and saw Ethan. Then she got concerned. A few minutes later Ethan was being intubated... back on the ventilator! Ugh! So frustrating. So they have been doing tests to see what is going on with him. His eyes look much better on Saturday and his breathing looks so much better. They have been doing tests and it doesn't look to be an infection. They talked about needing the stomach surgery but they need to be certain it is acid reflux before committing him to a major surgery like that. They are thinking it might just be that he needs to grow out of the acid reflux which will just take time. How much time... we don't know. He has been getting slowly worse over the last few days as his feedings starting to become more frequent with the bottle, breast, and more condensed feedings.

I really am frustrated right now. On Wednesday when we were in Glacier we were so excited because we thought he might be coming home in the next 2 weeks. Thursday the Dr. told us it would be about 3 weeks. Now, well now we have no idea. They still don't know what is wrong with him for sure. Ethan is a rockstar and we know he will get over this... we just pray that it is soon so we can take our baby home!

Good news is Ethan is still growing, eating, poopin and peeing! He is now 6 pounds 10 oz and over 18 inches long (this was as of Thursday night so he is much bigger now I am sure)! He also is over 3 months old, 94 days (but who's counting!)

This is the lake we hiked a total of 4 miles to see... completely worth it.

It is very hard to get a good picture of us when you hand a fancy camera to a tourist that knows nothing about it... but they tried ;)

Rock Star!

2010-06-28T12:41:00.000-07:00

So Ethan has been on the low flow canula for a few days now. He was on 1 1/2 liter yesterday morning then he went to 1 liter and when I left last night he was at 3/4 liter. When I got here this morning he was down to 1/8! He is currently at 1/4 liter after a little episode he had but hey he is still doing awesome! We tried feeding him a bottle today and he did ok with it. Not great but hey it has been awhile since he did the bottle in Billings. With a little practice I am sure he will do fine. They are still needing to ween his feedings down. Right now his feedings are over 2 hours 15 minutes and the goal is 30 minutes.

After my last post about mosquitos and the few comments I got I realized that we don't have a stroller yet! I have a net for the stroller and I just crocheted a blanket for a stroller but just realized we don't have an actual stroller! Any suggestions out there on what to get? We need something that can handle tough terrain because Shelby doesn't have the greatest sidewalks... that is where there actually are sidewalks!

Mark and I are tentatively planning on going to Glacier this week. The nurses that are on that day are all experienced and I feel ok leaving him for the day. I am just praying he continues to have good days like this because it is so awesome to see him feeling much better!