3 years

Today is our 3 year anniversary! It's one of those, "I can't believe it's been three years/ I can't believe it's only been three years" things. The last year brought a lot of change for us, especially the last few months of being parents! Tonight we are going to The Melting Pot to celebrate. Being a sucker for presents, we've already opened them! Sean got me a webcam (Skype anyone?), and I got him a food grinder attachment for the KitchenAid. Both things will most likely get a lot of use!


In other news, we're almost done Christmas shopping. Only 2 more to buy and we're done. Abby ended up getting more than I anticipated on buying her, but walking down the toy aisles, it's so hard to resist all the cute toys these days! Needless to say, she's spoiled. Speaking of spoiled, she even got to see Santa. The picture isn't the greatest, it's not very close and she's slumping down in Santa's arms, but you can't complain with free.

Yesterday I went back to work for the first time since Abigail was born. It was hard to leave her, but Sean was with her all day so that made it a little better. The worst was it was a super busy day, everyone's patience was fried, and it was one of my worst days working at the hospital. It didn't make it easy to come back. But I will only be working 1-2 days a week so it won't be so bad.

We're excited for Christmas and have been listening to Christmas songs all month. We especially enjoyed the Christmas program at church on Sunday with the beautiful music. It really helped us tune into the true Spirit of Christmas and remember the birth of our Savior. We are so grateful for Him and His life and sacrifice for us, and are glad to celebrate His birth.

We're are also excited to bless Abigail on January 1st. Anyone who wants to come is welcome:) I still haven't gotten her a blessing dress yet, but I'm going on the hunt this week. I've been waiting since I didn't know what size she would fit. Speaking of size, she's starting to outgrow her newborn clothes, but mostly just in length. Which makes it even more difficult to choose a size since most of her 3 month clothes are a little too big. But, better too big than not being able to get it off! Here's a perspective picture with Daddy to see how big she is getting!

We also started bring her to church with us on Sundays. She and I only stay for Sacrament, but I think she likes it!

2 months old!

Yesterday Abigail turned 2 months old! I can't believe how fast these last 2 months have gone, and especially the last one since she's been home! I thought I'd update you all on her goings on.

She learned how to roll over from her tummy to her back. As I'm writing this I can't remember if I wrote about it in the last post or not, but I'm going to include the video as proof! I thought that she had lost the ability (because of her ever increasing chubbiness) or had forgotten how, but she did it again yesterday.

She's also started Army crawl-scooting. It's the best way I can describe it. It's not exactly like an Army crawl, but she's getting around. Here's here before and after pictures, and I swear I did not move her!

Before: the way I set her down

After: the way she ended up

We went to the Dr.'s on Wednesday and had her 2 month check-up. She'd been off the oxygen for a week, and when they checked her again, she was perfect! No more oxygen!!! I'll be glad to get all the tanks out of the house. She's growing well and is in the 3rd %ile for weight, the 5th %ile for height, and the 0 %ile for head circumference. I had to laugh when I saw these because it's the charts for a 2 month old born at ~40 weeks. On the charts for preemie's she's doing great and is in the 50-75th %ile in all categories. She's now above 8 pounds and gaining it all in her thighs and cheeks, and she's 21 inches long.

The doctor gave me the go ahead to start letting her sleep longer during the night, and I love it! The first couple nights she did great and slept about 6 hours, but she's also learning how to wake up better and so it's looking like the longer sleeping might not be long lasting, at least for a while. We also got a prescription for her acid reflux, and she is doing soooo much better. Less fussy, sleeps better, and eating better. After the first day of having her medicine, she started eating almost an ounce more than she was before, which leads me to believe the acid reflux was keeping her from eating as much as she could/should have.

She also got her shots, which made for a fuuuussy baby. I know I have it easy when it comes to her, she's usually pretty calm, easy to console, and doesn't cry much, but that day she cried and cried and no amount of consoling helped. Needless to say, we do not like shots.

We enjoyed our Thanksgiving at Sean's parents and Abby got to meet her uncle Owen and friend uncle Steven. She also got to wear her cute Turkey onesie that Brenna made.

I like this one because it's so cute when she yawns! Also one of the turkey's pupils fell off. I tried to fix it with super glue, but all the glue ended up on my fingers and none on the eye. Hence, the one pupiled turkey.

The cute tail feathers!!

Anddd she's awake!

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!