Christmas Celebration

 A huge thank you to my dad for taking pictures and sharing them with us. We celebrated Christmas with my side of the family on the 29th of December. Weston was still in the ISCN, so it was hard celebrating without him. Our nurse worked with us to time his feedings so that I could have a couple of hours away to spend with family.

Mom made a wonderful meal - Steve and I had been primarily eating hospital food, so we enjoyed a delicious home cooked meal! After dinner, we took family pictures.

Miles, Mike, Ben, Arwen, Annika, and Lydia

Dan, Hope, Carol, Joshua, Hannah, and Jordan

Me, Amaya, and Steve

All the grandkids with the exception of Weston

Our entire family - minus Weston

After pictures, we opened the mountain of presents! When there are 18 people in the family - there are A LOT of presents!

The Springer's gave us this cute outfit for Weston - which he has already outgrown!

Hope

Amaya

The kids drew names and Amaya picked Miles, We gave him this NOISY game - similar to Hungry, Hungry, Hippos! (Sorry Mike and Arwen!)

Lydia

Hannah

Annika - There were a lot of American Girl boxes for all the girls!

 Jordan

Ben

Joshua

 Miles, Mike, and Arwen with his new felt board!

This was one of the favorite gifts - a POINTER to play school. Although, the adults came up with a bunch of other ideas for the use of this! Haven't laughed that hard in a long time!

 Amaya

Mike and Arwen

Carol

 Dan

 Amaya and Hope - best buddies!

Even though we didn't get to spend as much time with my sister and family as we would have liked, I was so glad that Amaya got to spend a lot of time playing with her cousins - especially Hope.

Choir Weekend

Finally, I was able to participate in our church's choir this past weekend! The choir only sings 5-6 times a year, so each weekend that we sing is very special. The first weekend - I went to 2 of the rehearsals and then got shingles. The second weekend - I was put on bedrest. Grrr... So this time, nothing was going to stop me from singing.

We practice two evenings prior to weekend services and then rehearse again Saturday afternoon before the 5:30pm service and then again on Sunday morning before the 9:00am and 10:30am services. With limited rehearsals, there is an expectation that we do quite a bit of practicing at home. A package is mailed out about 2 weeks in advance with the music and a CD with our vocal part. I generally, just pop the CD in the car or at home and sing away. Amaya knows some of the songs now too! In fact, she recently said her favorite song was, "Where I Belong."

We sang five songs: Where I Belong, Open Up the Heavens, O For A Thousand (Hallelujah), The Stand, and Need You Here. And by the end of the 10:30am service, my voice was pretty shot. But it was absolutely incredible to be part of the choir again and worship our Lord! It brought me back to my North Park days singing in the Gospel Choir. 

Our next performance is in April, and I can't wait! Come and join us for a wonderful time of worship!

An Interview with Amaya

I saw this idea on Pinterest about interviewing your kids every year and since Amaya just turned FIVE, I thought it would be fun to ask her these questions on every birthday. Here are here unedited answers:

1. What is your name?

 Amaya

2. How old are you?

Five

3. Where do you go to school?

Kingdom Kids

4. What is your favorite thing to do in school?

 Color

5. What is your best friend's name?

Teagan

6. What is your favorite color?

Pink, Blue, Green, and Yellow

7. What is your favorite food?

Cheese Tortellini

8. What is your least favorite food?

Chicken Pot Pie

9. What is your favorite TV show?

Dinosaur Train

10. What is your favorite toy?

Babies

11. What is your favorite book?

Dora

12. What is your favorite song?

Where I Belong (one of my choir songs)             

13. What do you want to be when you grow up?   

A Cheerleader

14. How much money will you make when you grow up?

500 cents

15. How old will you be when you get married?

29

16. How many kids will you have?

3

17. What kind of car will you drive?

A slug bug with blue and pink stripes

18. What does your daddy do all day?

Work

19. What does your mommy do all day?

Work with Weston

20. What is the best thing about being five?

Playing with Weston

       

   

My Little Helper

Everyone asks, "Does Amaya enjoy being a big sister?" "Is she a good helper?" "Does she envy all the attention Weston gets?"

So... to answer these.... Yes - Amaya LOVES being a big sister. She is a WONDERFUL helper. And yes she does envy all the attention Weston gets, but understands that his needs are often times more pressing and urgent than hers. Steve and I have both been more intentional about spending quality alone time with her, but some days it's just never enough.

Amaya helps get out the diapers, pick out his outfits, retrieves basically anything we need - pacifier, burp cloth, rattle, etc. But one of her favorite things to do is help give Weston a bath. She evens gets upset if I give him a bath without her!

I let her take the lead on most everything and finish up what she doesn't want to do or can't do very well - ie. washing his tush and privates and washing his hair.

And for the most part, Weston loves his bath and is very patient with Amaya. Unfortunately, once he gets chilly, it's all over from there.

A close up of our handsome boy

Amaya also loves to comb his hair - what little there is of it. There's quite a bit of hair in the back, but not so much on the top - with the exception of his little "mohawk".

All clean and ready to snuggle with Amaya!

Visit from the Schibillas

We were thrilled that Weston was home from the hospital just in time to meet Jen visiting from sunny California. Jen is getting her master's degree in family and marriage counseling and is graduating in May. We don't get to see her very often and we miss her tremendously, but California seems to suit her well! Amaya wants Jen to take her to Disneyland... just not sure when we would get out that way.

 

Brenda and Jen drove down from the cities to visit with us and Weston slept the entire time while Amaya chatted the entire time! It was wonderful to catch up with them.

Brenda stopped by for a quick visit on Thursday on her way to Lacrosse. He's changed a lot since she last saw him. Once again, he slept the entire time. One of these visits, he will show them his beautiful blue eyes! Thanks for visiting us - we LOVE to see you!

6 Week Check-Up

I still can't believe that Weston is 6 weeks old! In some instances, it feels like it was yesterday when we went to triage, and in others (like when it's 3am and Weston is grunting and crying) it seems like forever!

I met with Dr. Harms yesterday for my 6 week check up. Needless to say, I was a little nervous about my blood pressure. They took me off labetalol on the 16th of January, so I was hoping that my blood pressure had normalized for good on it's own. Praise God! It was 110/64! Whew - HUGE sigh of relief. I'm at a higher risk for developing high blood pressure down the road because of the preeclampsia and my family history, so my family medicine physician will be monitoring it every year.

Dr. Harms, the nurses, and the clinical assistants all "ooohed" and "ahhhed" over Weston. I've gotten to know the staff over there very well because of all my appointments, so they were very excited to see him. It was sad saying good-bye to Dr. Harms because he's seen me through a lot and he's been a wonderful physician with so much expertise and knowledge. Plus, he's just a nice guy with special quirks and mannerisms that I will miss!

But, I'm relieved that this chapter - trekking up to Charlton 3B - is over and that Weston and I are happy and healthy. 

Christmas

We celebrated Christmas as a family on the 27th while Weston was still in the hospital. Unfortunately, I left my camera at the hospital, so no pictures were taken. All we have are the precious memories of Amaya diving into a big pile of presents - lots of new stuff for her Bitty Baby!

Amaya and Steve were responsible for getting our Christmas tree AND decorating it since I was on bed rest. The picture is a little blurry, but the tree was beautiful. Steve did the lights in about 15 minutes - normally it takes me at least 2 hours since I like a lot of lights. And Amaya did most of the decorating (Steve decorated the tree where she couldn't reach) and both did a fantastic job! I only had to move a few ornaments to get the tree evened out a little.

With my sister and her family visiting from Nebraska, we celebrated Christmas with everyone on the 29th. I brought my camera, but my dad ended up taking pictures, so I'll have to arrange to get them from him to post here at a later date. 

And finally, after getting Weston home from the hospital, we were able to celebrate with Steve's parents. 

Here's a picture of their tree!

Doing a little snooping before the delicious dinner Ruth Ann prepared.

Grandma is a natural snuggling with Weston.

Opening presents...

Weston getting a little snack....

Family pictures

Remainder of Weston's Hospitalization

Over the next several days - December 28th - 31st, Weston's only goals were to eat and grow. I ended up spending all my time at the hospital including overnights so that we could get him off formula supplementation and strictly on breastmilk. In order for him to be dismissed, he needed to nurse exclusively for 24 hours and increase his weight. Fortunately, I had amazing nurses that helped me out tremendously with the nursing thing. Nursing a preemie is A LOT different than a full term baby, so I'm glad I had experts to help me out. Also, the lactation consultant happened to be a friend of my mother-in-law and had been praying for our family for several weeks, so we had a special connection. She was an absolute blessing and a huge encouragement to not give up. Weston would get pretty tuckered out from nursing - it was a whole lot easier for him to receive the tube feedings, but now he needed to work at being fed. He was an absolute champ and surprised all the staff in the ISCN. The difficulty was trying to keep him awake to make sure he was getting enough nourishment.

I grew very attached to our nurses because they were so understanding and compassionate. All of the nurses work 12 hour shifts and several days in a row, so we had 3 consistent nurses during the day shifts and 1 consistent nurse during the night shifts. The ISCN can have 22 babies, but over the holidays it was unusually slow, and there were only 4 babies there including Weston. Because it was slow, Weston got a lot of special care and two of our nurses were on orientation, so most days there were two nurses caring for Weston - the orientee and the preceptor. As our time in the ISCN was coming to an end, I was thrilled to be able to go home with Weston and be together as a family of four, but, I was also nervous taking Weston home and caring for him without the expertise of our nurses. My favorite nurse, R'Lou was going to be off work the 30th and 31st and it was so hard for me to say goodbye. She was so supportive and encouraging - I honestly wanted to take her home with us. I have never been more impressed with the care these nurses gave us - they truly are phenomenal.

On the 31st, our nurse woke me up and said that we had a lot to do to get ready to be discharged. Discharged?!? I thought we would be staying until January 2nd when he would be 37 weeks. Our little overachiever had done so well nursing, that he was gaining weight well. He weighed in at 5lbs 1oz and even though it wasn't back up to his birth weight, the staff was pleased with his progress. Our agenda for the day included more education, a hearing test, car seat test, and eek - circumcision! I gave him a bath and shortly thereafter an audiologist came to the room and checked his hearing. He passed with flying colors! Then one of the pediatric physicians came in to have me consent for Weston's circumcision. Unforunately, when they brought him back to do the procedure, they decided to hold off until he was a little - ahem - "bigger." (He's now scheduled for February 8th, but don't tell him!)

Last thing was the car seat test. Amaya had this done because she was below the recommended weight and  did well, so I was hopeful that Weston would do just as well. Unfortunately, I didn't remember that we needed the car seat base, so after a frantic call to Steve, he brought it up on his lunch hour. The nurse was struggling to get the straps tight enough on Weston to be considered safe, and I freaked out again. She recommended borrowing someone else's car seat that was a little smaller or purchasing a preemie car seat. He was being discharged today! Where on earth are we going to find a smaller car seat or a preemie car seat this late!?!? Plus, if the car seat worked for Amaya, surely it would work for Weston!!! Fortunately, another nurse came in to check on us, and was able to make some adjustments and got Weston all snuggled in tight.

After 90 minutes in the car seat, he passed the test wonderfully. They just wanted to make sure he didn't stop breathing, oxygen level stayed within normal limits, and his heart rate remained stable while in the car seat.

I packed up our room and Steve picked us up after work and we were headed HOME! Praise GOD!! We made a quick stop at my parents to pick up Amaya and went home. My sister and her family were visiting from Nebraska to celebrate Christmas and New Year's and we missed quite a bit of time with them while in the hospital. So, when we got home and settled, Joshua, Jordan, Carol, and my dad came over for a little bit.

 

It was a different New Year's Eve for us... Instead of our usual party with family, we stayed up to midnight watching a movie and rang in the New Year with our new addition! Even though it was different, it was the best New Year's Eve ever! So glad to be HOME!!!

Visitors

For Weston's baby book, I wanted to make a list of all the visitors that came to see him in the ISCN, so this post is more for my memory, than anything else...

Patricia Markus - RN in allergy
Rebecca Partridge - RN in allergy
Tricia Stevens - RN in allergy
Danielle Connor - RN in allergy

Grandma and Grandpa Gustafson
Grandma and Grandpa Horning
Mike, Arwen, Ben, Annika, Lydia, and Miles Gustafson
Dan, Carol, Hannah, and Hope Springer (Joshua and Jordan saw Weston when he was home)

Nancy Anderson (our beloved friend from Wal-Mart)
Brad, Angie, and Josh Hansen (Nancy's son-in-law, daughter, and grandson)

Jen Hull (wonderful friend)
Susie O'Connell (Jen's mom)

Pastor Steve and Lori Eckert

Weight and Blood Pressure Updates

Weston has had three weight checks since he came home from the hospital and so I thought I better get updates out and on "paper" so I can remember when I get around to his baby book. (I still haven't done Amaya's yet... but most of the important stuff is already on our blog, so it should be easy. Finding time, on the other hand, is another story.)

Weston was discharged on December 31st (more about his last few days in the ISCN in another upcoming post) and his doctors wanted him to get a weight check within a few days of dismissal. His last weight in the hospital was 5lbs 1oz. On January 3rd, we met with Dr. Wade and he weighed in at 5lbs 5oz - almost back up to his birth weight of 5lbs  6oz. On January 11th, we met with out primary doctor - Dr. Horn and he weighed in at 5lbs, 15oz! While Weston was in the hospital, the dietician met with us and wanted me to supplement his feedings with formula with a little extra calories and I was hesitant because I worked so hard to get him to nurse well and some of it was my own pride. Dr. Horn reassured me that we were on the right track and as long as his growth curve was on the up and up, there was no need for me to supplement feedings with formula. Weston had another weight check on January 25th and he was 7lbs 9oz!!! All my worrying about whether he was getting enough milk, was completely unnecessary! Some of his preemie clothes were starting to get a little snug and when I put him in his carseat, he was definitely getting bigger. However, for him to gain a little over 2 pounds in his short little life far surpassed my expectations! Way to go Weston!

I also had a couple appointments this month for a blood pressure check. On January 2nd, I met with Dr. Hokenstead (I thought it was going to be the doctor who delivered Weston, but it was her husband!) My blood pressure was still a little elevated, so I was supposed to continue the Labetalol until I returned to see him. I was disappointed because the medication made me so tired, and I was afraid my blood pressure wouldn't normalize (even though they told me it could take up to 6 weeks for it to go back to normal.) A few days prior to this appointment on the 16th, I began feeling lightheaded (a sign that my blood pressure was lowering) and sure enough, my blood pressure was 100/64. Typically, they would taper the dose of my medication, but because I was having symptoms of lightheadedness, they discontinued the medication completely. Praise God! I have my 6 week follow up appointment the beginning of February with Dr. Harms, so they will recheck my blood pressure again, but I should be just fine.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for Weston's and my health! Overall, we are doing wonderful!