Gratitute

I cannot even fathom that Thanksgiving is now less than a week away! Even so, I have been thinking about all of our very many blessings and the things that I am grateful for.

Today is a day to be especially grateful. Abigail passed her room air challenge! Meaning she doesn't have to wear the oxygen anymore! She will get checked again next week at the doctors office, so it may not be permanent if they think that she's working too hard to keep up her saturations, but we're thinking on the positive side of things! For now, no more lugging around the oxygen tank. No more tripping over the tubing. No more "can you hold her so I can go into the kitchen because her tubing is not quite long enough"!

I am grateful to be eating delicious 1000 mile stew. I may have already had 2 heaping bowls... The only things that could make this bowl even better is from a dutch oven at the cabin with family:) That seems to be when it tastes the best! (and for those of you who are wondering what in the world 1000 mile stew is, it's a family recipe beef stew)

I am also grateful for Dr. Brown's bottles. I bought one this morning to see if it would help with Abby's present eating issues. She's been really fussy when she eats lately and has been spitting up more, eating less, and has thrown up a few times. The home health nurse practitioner agreed that it sounds like she may be having a little bit of reflux. We have a doctors appointment for next week, but in the mean time I needed to figure something out. Dr. Brown's bottles are expensive, but I can already tell a huge difference. Over the last two feedings she's been a lot less fussy, hasn't spit up very much, and is eating more than she was. and sleeping better I may add.

Thank you Dr. Brown, whoever you are!

I am also grateful for the pumpkin cookies that I will be making later and eating way too many of.

I'm grateful that it is Friday. Even though there is nothing to differentiate it from all of the other days when you're at home with a baby, there is just something satisfying about Friday's.

Thinking back, I am also grateful that my mom was able to come help us when Abby came home!

I'm thankful for my in-laws who have helped a lot and who gave Abby beautifully painted furniture! Now her clothes can be organized in drawers rather than on the floor in stacks:)


Now that Abby is off the oxygen, I think we'll be making the transition to her crib full time. It won't be anything new for her, but I think I might not be able to sleep the first night with her in there!

November already?!

The past two months have been a crazy whirlwind and I can't believe it's already mid-November. I thought I'd jump on here (despite my long list of things to do, which includes taking a nap) and catch y'all up on what's happening in our lives.

After 31 days in the NICU, Abigail finally came home! She's still on oxygen, but we're hoping she'll be off that by the end of next week when the home health nurse comes. Two hours after we got home, we got a call from the hospital saying one of the babies had tested positive for pertussis (whopping cough) and had to take her to the dr.'s office , which is conveniently only 2 minutes away, to get tested. As a precaution, they put all the babies on an antibiotic for 5 days. The combination of her transition to being in our home, and the antibiotics made for one fussy baby, at least for her. She's a lot better now, is sleeping better, eating better, and not so fussy.

We love having her home with us and having our family all together. We were lucky enough to have my mom come for a week to help us with this transition and I'm so glad she did. I always told myself I wasn't going to be a worry-wart of a mother, but I think it's innate. You can't help it! and it was so nice to have her there to reassure me, give me advice, and for me to ask her questions.

We also got Netflix and I've been watching 30 Rock from the beginning. Mostly I watch it while pumping to make the time go faster and keep myself awake during the night. We also love our new apartment. Although it is smaller, we like the floor plan much better and I think it's more inviting. We also have a nice storage closet out on the patio so that Abby still has a closet instead of using it for storage.

I also had a baby shower here in CO thanks to my lovely mother-in-law! My sister-in-law Susanna did the games, and it was a lot of fun! Thanks to everyone who came and for all the gifts!!!


Here are some pictures!

Here's us coming home from the hospital on the first snow day of the year!

A cute outfit she got at the baby shower!

A cute outfit I got for her:)

Her Halloween costume, a ballerina!

Abigail Jo Robison

So many of you may be wondering why in the world (or how in the world) Abby is here 8 weeks early. I'm still wondering myself, but I am glad she is here and is healthy and doing well! Not to mention she's the cutest baby that has ever lived, not that I'm biased or anything... Anyway, here's the story...

Sunday morning
2 AM - I'm peacefully sleeping when I awake to a "pop" and guuush (gross I know). My heart started racing when I realized what had actually just happened. Sean was still up watching TV upstairs so I grabbed my phone and called him without getting up. The conversation went something like this, "Hello", "SEAN MY WATER JUST BROKE!!!", "Seriously?", "YES, COME DOWNSTAIRS!", "Something something", "I DON'T KNOW JUST COME DOWN RIGHT NOW!!". It took him almost an hour to get downstairs or at least it seemed that way. When he got to the room I ripped off the covers and he realized that my water had indeed broken. We both got appropriately dressed for a trip to the ER. Meanwhile I'm trying to breathe and slow down my heart rate knowing that freaking out wouldn't do the baby any good. Sean called his mom, she said go to the ER. Called the doctor, and got the one on-call for the night. He asks how far along, I say 32 weeks, he says "wow that's early" (as if I didn't know this already). He says go to the hospital, I'll meet you there.

2:30ish - We get to the ER, and don't have to wait long for someone from labor and delivery to come pick me up and take me to their triage room. I should mention at this point, I have no contractions and am just fine besides being scared. I change into a gown, and the nurse takes my vitals, history, finds the baby's heart rate etc. She says their going to check the fluid to make sure it is indeed my water that had broken. When she comes back and sees how much liquid (probably TMI) there is, she says "oh yeah, I probably don't even need to check it, but I will just in case". She comes back a minute later and says it was indeed my water and they'd be taking me to a regular L&D room. Meanwhile, I start having little contractions.

3:30-4ish - I get to the other room, and they start an IV, give me a steroid shot for her lungs, and tell me they're going to try to keep me pregnant for 48 more hours. My contractions started getting longer and more painful, and closer together, but the monitor wasn't picking them up very well. Finally they got so bad, I told Sean I wanted something for pain, and they decide to see if I was dilated. After 2 people checking through the contractions (which was very painful) they decide I'm 7-8 cm dilated. This is when we alllll realize the baby is coming soon. They ask me if I want an epidural, I say "YES PLEASE" and that was the smartest choice I'd made for the last month. Before I got the epidural, I wasn't getting any relief between the contractions. Afterwards, I could at least relax and breath, which is a lot harder through contractions than I had ever imagined. My anesthesiologist was amazing and even let me keep laying on my side which they usually don't do. My doctor was also awesome, even though I'd never met him before. He was very helpful, calm, and caring.

7ish - I start pushing through the contractions. The epidural and the magnesium they had given me earlier had made it harder for me to feel the contractions, so they gave me some pitocin to make they more regulated. I should mention that through all of this, Sean was the most awesome husband ever. He rubbed my back and would have done anything to help me:)

9:02 - Baby Abigail is born! They took her straight away to the warmer to get her warm and check her lungs, which were a big concern considering how early she was. She scored 8's on her apgars, which made me quite pleased. Abby got a c-pap put on, and then Sean went with the nurses to take her to the NICU, while I got pampered with apple juice.

Later that afternoon I got to go see her. She is beautiful! Easily the cutest baby I've ever seen:) Sean, Aaron, and Jan were able to give her a blessing that night, which definitely made me feel better, and helped Abby's lungs get strong quick!

The next day they changed her oxygen to a regular cannula, and the next day she was completely off of the oxygen. She is continuing to get stronger and closer to coming home! She's off of her IV's, her pulse oxygen monitor, and is at her max for her feedings. She's surprised the doctors at how well she's done and how far she's come considering how early she was.

Sean and I are smitten and love to hold her and take pictures of her. We're hoping that she'll get to come home in a couple weeks and are so excited to have her in our family! Here's a few pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Brand new! Look at that hair!

On her C-pap machine. Day 1

Regular oxygen! Day 2

First bath! You can see how small she is.

Hanging out in her phototherapy lights

She loves it when Daddy holds her!

Hit by a...

Train. Or at least that's how I feel this last week, like I've been hit by the third trimester train. Pregnancy was going well and I was feeling good, until BAM, it's a lot harder and I'm not feeling so good. Mostly just uncomfortable. On Monday I will be 32 weeks. That means 8 weeks left to go, and 7 months down. It seems like no matter how I sit, it's always uncomfortable, and so is laying. Sleeping is almost not enjoyable since I wake up at least every 2 hours to pee and have to move around. My hips and/or back are almost constantly hurting, and it's hard to find relief from that. I've also freaked out several times this week because she's not moving around quite as much as she was before (probably because she's so squished!), but I just have to lay down and eat some sugar to get her going.

On a positive note, Sean felt her move for the first time this week. He was pretty excited but said that it felt weird. I also had my first Braxton-Hicks on Sunday. Not very exciting, but at least my body is getting ready to bring this little girl into the world. Also positive, we've started our parenting/birthing class, and last Monday I pretty much got a 3 hour massage from Sean in practice for relaxing techniques:) He swears the whole class is a ploy for him to give me a massage.

Unrelated to the baby, Fall is almost here and I'm so excited to start eating Fall foods, like my favorite, pumpkin. Tonight we're going to try a pumpkin pasta. Hopefully it's good. I'm also going to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies later this week. I was surprised when I went to Target that they already had Christmas decorations for sale, right next to the Halloween stuff. Are they forgetting Thanksgiving too? At least we have something in common. We also get the keys to our new apartment this Friday and I'm excited to start moving. I also have this thing for re-arranging furniture, so setting up our furniture in a new configuration is pretty exciting. Sean also gets to do a Crisis Intervention training this next week, which he was looking forward to. He had actually gotten approved for the training that was right around when the baby is due, so he was fortunate to be able to switch and get to participate in this one.

Summer, baby, Christmas

I think that it is trying to turn into Fall here in Colorado. It's getting cooler and terrifically more bearable. However, my mind seems to go through this sequence: Summer, baby, and then Christmas. Fall shmall. Or the other two big holidays that exist between now and Christmas. In order to get ready for the arrival of our new little one, it seems like nothing else matters. That alone is the biggest event until Christmas, and in my defense, Thanksgiving will totally overshadowed by the fact that a) I have a new baby at home, b) I'm in the hospital with a new baby, or c) I am feeling like I'm going to explode because new baby is late. On Monday, I'll be 30 weeks along. That's 3/4 of the way. 10 weeks left.

Anyway, as you can tell I have baby on the mind. In other news, Sean and I have been trying to expand our food horizons. We've tried several new recipes, which have not disappointed thus far. Some of the new ones we'll be trying this next week are orange Thai beef skewers, baked creamy chicken taquitos, and grilled cheese with pineapple. Sean also make his own chili from his own recipe the other night. It was pretty tasty! I also have a new addiction to food blogs. It's so nice to have people think of new things to eat for you. 

We're also excited to be moving at the end of this month/ beginning of next month. It's a little smaller, but I actually think the amount of storage space is bigger. It's also cheaper. and I'll finally be able to set up the nursery. That's probably 75% of the reasons why I'm so excited to move. We're also moving in next door to a family in our ward, which I'm also excited about. Also it has new carpet, which means no smelling like dog pee! (yes, our apartment still smells like dog pee occasionally).

Yesterday I canned peaches. It was the first time I have canned all by myself. Luckily, I was pretty successful, except having a sticky kitchen, but what's the fun in canning if you don't make a huge mess, right? Actually, our kitchen is probably the cleanest part of the whole apartment now because of the after-canning clean up. 

I have a few projects I want to finish before we move. One is finishing up the kitchen chairs. I painted another one last weekend so now I only have one left. I also need to redo the rocking chair, but that requires Sean's assistance to strip it. I also really want to redo the coffee table before we move in, but he needs to strip that also. They should be pretty easy once stripped, just a coat of primer, and a couple coats of paint, and stain for the top of the coffee table. Could it be that I'm starting to feel the nesting instinct? Probably.