Milestones

wow....

6 months have gone by since the terrifying and amazing day when our Sophie was born. In six months, I don't think a single day has passed without us realizing how incredibly lucky we are to have gone through it all relatively unscathed. When I am feeding her and I happen to catch a glimpse of the little scars on her hands from her IV, or when she stretches a certain way and looks like a giant version of her formerly tiny self that we used to stare at for hours...we are so grateful.

This month, Sophie hit the 8lb mark! She is fitting into her 1 month clothes and her little toes reach all the way to the ends of her sleepers. We moved out of newborn sized diapers and into the stage 1 size, and she finally got to wear the sleeper that my mom bought for her before she was born - when she found out I was pregnant. I used to stare at that sleeper and think that I couldn't imagine the GIGANTIC creature that would fill it out, and I surely couldn't imagine snapping those little snaps all the way up to MY baby's chin. It was moment for me. I have them every day. I think that probably every mom does.

Sophie met with some play therapists whose job it is to gauge her development and suggest play activities for us to try together. They were really impressed with her muscle strength and focus...she follows objects all around the room and looks for where sounds are coming from -- exactly the things she is "supposed" to be doing. They judge her by her due date - January 4 - so they tell me that she should be doing the things a 3 month old should be doing - and she is. More that this, though, she is doing things that WAY bigger babies do, and it looks so crazy, because she is the size of a newborn but has the ability to sit up with support and she holds her head so steady. She loves to play with her floor gym and hit the things to make them play music.


Earlier this month, I put her down for a nap on her tummy (I KNOW -- not the recommended position but she was hospital trained and is on a monitor so it's OK with her doctor) anyway, I put her down for a nap on her tummy and came in later to look in the crib at her giant grin smiling up at me. She rolled over.



Every day she changes so much and brings so much joy to my life. She makes me want to be a better person. She makes me want to do the things I need to do to be a happier person. She makes me feel like all of these things are possible. All in all...she is the best thing that ever happened to me. I just hope that I can in some small way repay her the favour.

Out of the cold......

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!!

First of all, so sorry for the incredibly long delay in posting, but every minute of my life has been consumed with diapers, bottles, playtime and listening to a baby monitor for any signs of unhappiness. Life has been pretty sweet for the past few months since our girl came home.

We've been trapped in the the house all winter, avoiding RSV ( a virus that can make preemies really really sick) which means the only places Sophie was allowed to go were to her medical appointments and to grandmas houses. It's been tough not going anywhere, but so nice to be able to spend so much time with our beautiful girl.

For Easter, I made her a little fuzzy chicken sweater and some little felt shoes to wear to the party at Grandma's.

She looked so cute. She always looks so cute to us. We are absolutely in love with her.

She is doing so well health wise. At her last doctor's appointment she weighed in at 7lbs 3.5oz, but I'm pretty sure she has hit the 8lb mark now. She eats really well and sleeps so good....we are so fortunate. She has been sleeping from about 8 at night to 3 in the morning and then a bottle and back to bed till 8 in the morning. It took some time to get into a routine but now we all operate like a well oiled Sophie care machine.

Once Sophie came home we realized how many people were so truly touched by our experience. Sophie's (second) cousin in T.O even wrote her school speech about her! She got an A+! Way to go Madeline! I am so touched that her young cousins think she's pretty special.

Life is so busy now, but I'm going to make more of an effort to update more often...so keep checking up. I really find that the writing is therapeutic, and I love to hear from everyone. Thanks!

she's home!

she's home. we are loving it and going crazy and pinching ourselves.

I'm exhausted and I'm going to try to catch a nap between feedings while Kie stays up and peeks through her door.

The big news.....

Sophie has been doing so well, getting bigger and stronger every day. She eats really well from a bottle and is slowly learning to breastfeed - though she needs to get bigger to get the endurance to keep going. With all of the progress she has made, and the amount of time she has been in hospital, we finally heard the news we wanted to hear.

Sophie is coming home tomorrow.

(let me say that again so it sounds real to me)

Sophie is coming home tomorrow.

I keep trying to not get too excited, because after everything I've seen and felt and all of the ups and downs --I just don't want to add any disappointment if anything doesn't pan out. But she only needs her car seat test and an apnea monitor in order to be discharged tomorrow - her original due date.

I keep trying to imagine what it would have been like if none of this had happened and if I had gone full term and she was actually born now. I wonder if I would be as incredibly ecstatic to bring her home. I wonder if I would appreciate our amazing families as much as I do now. I wonder if I would have chosen the same colour for her bedroom and I wonder if I would appreciate what a miraculous gift she is as much as I do now.

Being at the end of the NICU road and at the beginning of a whole new one, I can't help but take a minute to look back at the craggy pass we just got through and wonder how it all happened. I didn't know that I had the strength to do what needed to be done and to see the things that I saw. I didn't know that I had the patience to wait...and wait......wait......wait. I didn't know that I would be able to appreciate this experience and see it for the good it has made in my life.

We all would like to thank every single person who has shared their love and support for us over this past 3 months. We (Kie, Sophie and I) are stronger only because you all shared your strength with us. We couldn't have done this without you guys. Thank you all so very very much.

I don't know what to expect with a newborn in the house. I mostly just think that I have absolutely no idea what it will actually be like. I just know that this is the beginning of something really amazing. I am sure I will keep writing, and I hope you will all keep reading, and keep sharing in our girl, our Sophie Sunshine.

Home (sort of) for the Holidays!

I lost it. I cracked....

Friday the 21st I went into McMaster to visit Sophie and heard, yet again, that there were no beds available for her to be transferred to St. Catharines. The nurse asked me how I was doing and I said:

Fine...............no wait.
Not fine. (*queue the uncontrollable sobs
and ball-bearing sized tears)
You need to go get the social worker
(Karla). I need to talk to her now. I'm done. I'm done.....
I'm taking my baby and I am going home.

So, Karla comes to see me and explains that there's nothing they can do, and that it would be unethical for me to take the baby now, and that it's only a little while longer to wait for a bed and that she thinks I need to go home and rest....yadda yadda yadda. I continued to cry and beg for them to do anything ANYTHING to get my girl closer to home and out of the level three NICU she had outgrown. I even told them to ask St. Catharines if I could put her in a box in the corner of the old people's ward and I would stay and care for her myself. I hit the wall.

Then, like out of an O.Henry Christmas story, a magical thing happened. A nurse practitioner named Sandy came over to me and told me that she would do her best to make things better for me. I had never seen her before in all of our time at the NICU, but here she was and she was going to help me! She disappeared into the hubub of the NICU and left me to wipe my mascara tears off of Sophie's head. Shortly after, she reappeared, and let me know that there was a bed available in Niagara Falls and it was ours if we wanted it. YES! WE WANT! WE REALLY WANT!

I love you Sandy nurse practitioner. I have a fantasy that I call the McMaster NICU and ask for Sandy and they say, "Why, there's no Sandy that works here...." and then a bell rings and I know that Sandy got her wings....

This is the first Christmas in my life that we didn't have a tree. We didn't buy gifts for each other and we didn't bake. I have a Christmas theme every year and for a year in advance I am preparing a gift wrap and decor colour scheme. This year there was only hurried wrapping of a few simple gifts with no thought as to how they would look together under a tree. Somehow, though, we still had Christmas. Spending our afternoon with our beautiful girl and our families and being so grateful for what we have made it through...being so grateful for the people we share our lives with. I'd like to say that I found the true meaning of Christmas....but I still missed baking, shopping and wrapping gifts in my extra special way. We're having a family Christmas in January, when we can all be together.

So, long story short....our girl got her wings and came to Niagara Falls to spend the rest of her time growing in the NICU there. Our amazing holiday was spent letting various family members hold her. The most amazing thing was seeing my brother Gord hold my daughter for the first time. They're hospital pals and all we wanted was for them to be home for Christmas together.

So, we got our Sophie sunshine home for the holidays, but she still isn't home home. She is gaining weight steadily (she's 4lbs, 4oz now) and has no more tubes. She eats from a bottle and is still learning how to breastfeed. She doesn't have a lot of stamina, so I don't make her try for too long, but I've been pumping for 3 months, so I don't want to give up now. She is still having little battles with reflux, and desats to the '80s once in a while, but she is really stable and looks just like a newborn baby. Her due date was January 4, so we hope she's home by then.

In town on the clown

We've spent the last week in Hamilton thanks to Ronald McDonald house. Ronald McDonald house makes it possible for families with children in the hospital to stay in town with them for only $10 a night. They also provide dinners, free laundry facilities and soap and free long distance anywhere in the world. When we arrived at the house we were greeted with a hot dinner and an amazing room. It's huge and clean and has a four poster king size bed. It's nicer than our house.

The incredible kindness and my gratitude for the people at the house started me thinking about all of the hands that have helped to support us along this journey. I thought about Dr. Nwebube in Grimsby, whose gigantic hands wrote my blood pressure prescription and ensured the safety of my baby while in utero for those weeks. I thought about all of the nurses in Grimsby, especially the one who massaged my neck the night I couldn't sleep because of the pain and worry. I thought of the hands of Dr. Patricia Smith, who was the first to touch our Sophie and who welcomed her with the words, "It's a tiny tiny baby girl..". All of these hands, all working together to help us, to help our baby girl. More hands, in Hamilton, the amazing nursing staff of the NICU, who taught us how to use our hands to soothe Sophie back to sleep.The hands of Dr. Marrin and Dr. SantAnna, who kept our girl safe. Finally, I thought of the hands of the people who made the dinner for us at Ronald McDonald house.

All of these people worked together without knowing each other and without knowing us. All of these people gave so much kindness and gentle care to our family. All of these amazing people who just do these things because it's what they do. I am in awe.

Sophie is doing amazing. She weighs 3 pounds 7 ounces now. She's on the path to come home. We met with her doctor yesterday and he said that if she gets another negative eye swab on Tuesday then she can come out of isolation. She can then be transferred to St. Catharines if they have space for her. We just love seeing her blossom and it's really like she's a newborn, even though she's 10 weeks old. She cries and smiles and is learning (slowly) to breastfeed. I told the nurses that I feel like breastfeeding this 3 pound baby is like trying to park a Buick in an econo spot....

We are going crazy wanting this to be over. Both Kie and I feel exhausted, like we need a vacation, and the hardest part is coming up. Sometimes it feels like we've been running a marathon and we're almost done - until someone moves the finish line a little bit further away. The only way we've made it through has been on the support of all of your hands, our families and friends. We love to read your comments and they keep us going. We thank you all so much.

The road home

Hey everyone

It has been a whirlwind of activity for the past few days, with Sophie getting better and better and gaining weight like crazy. It seems like all of a sudden she was a big healthy baby and the nurses started to talk about her going home! HOME!

She's still in isolation while we wait for the result of her eye swab for the pseudomonas bacteria. You really can't tell she has any kind of infection, and she just seems to be getting bigger by the minute. Her nurse (Bonnie, who we absolutely love) is working to get her into a cot in the next few days. Bonnie is working with us on discharge planning, so she lets us take Sophie out of her isolette, bathe and diaper and dress her on our own. I love taking care of her, and it makes me want to hurry her up to get home.

In order for her to be discharged, she has to be off of the caffeine, have had no spells for a week and breastfeeding every meal and gaining weight. It seems like a tall order, but our girl is up for a challenge. Bonnie said we're probably looking at 3 to 4 weeks. It's hard not to try to push her to get home faster. I would love to have her here for Christmas, but she needs to come when she is really ready. I tried breastfeeding for the first time on Sunday, and Sophie did really well. She didn't fuss too much, and even took a couple of sucks. Yesterday we tried again and she did even more. Bonnie said she's a smart girl. We think so too.

All of this talk of home made us realize how incredibly underprepared we are to have her here. Once she is breastfeeding, I have to live with her at the hospital, and I haven't got her nursery ready at all. We've scurried in the last couple of days to register for baby stuff, find a car seat, look at cribs and furniture, buy paint for her room and clean it out to get ready for painting. While we were at Toys R Us last night looking at car seats, I had a sudden surge of joy that this moment had come. We are so very lucky and grateful to have our beautiful girl, and I can't wait to have her at home. I have a feeling that I have absolutely no idea how much my life is going to change when she's here but I can't wait to see what it will become.