Adventures in Babysitting

So I'm starting to panic a little about finding a babysitter for Brecken when I go back to work. We have a lady that is going to watch him 2 days a week but she doesn't want to do any more than that since she still has an 18 month old at home and a 3 year old at home also, that only goes to preschool 2 days a week. So we're still looking for someone to watch Brecken the other 3 days. Josh had talked to a lady he knows this summer that said she might do it, and to call her this fall. Well, we found out last week that she dropped her youngest child off at the home of a family we know, and then never came back to get him. Her husband had to come pick him up, and told the family that his wife left him again, for another guy. Then a few days later, the lady called her husband and begged her way back home.

Needless to say, we won't be calling her.

Last night, our neighbor's grown daughter told Josh she'd babysit. Josh did NOT say "great!" because this is the lady who always brings her own kids to our neighbor's house and screams cuss words at them all day long.

Won't be using her, either.

Ugh. Who knew it would be so hard to find a babysitter! There aren't any daycare centers here in Saratoga, so that's not an option. We have one month until I go back, hopefully something will turn up!!

Lions and tigers and bears, oh MICE!!!!

A couple weeks ago while my parents were here, I was sitting in one of our chairs in the living room and a mouse ran across the ottoman right in front of me. I HATE mice. And we couldn't catch the darn thing. My cat, who is extremely lazy, caught smell of it that evening, but couldn't catch it either. The cheeky little mouse ran up the curtains right beside my cat and walked across the curtain rod. By the time we got up to get rid of it, it vanished. We've caught sight of it a few times in the past couple weeks, but haven't been able to catch it with the mouse poison or the mouse traps yet. It's a tricky little thing, and Charlie has no interest in coming out of my bedroom during the day unless it's to eat. :) HOWEVER, last night I heard a noise and I looked over, and that darn thing was taking a candy corn out of the bowl of candy corns sitting next to the chair. I was in the leather chair with Brecken. It ran back down the table. Josh pulled the couch out, and saw it go underneath the fireplace. (There's about a 6 inch gap under the fireplace and cracks that go somewhere, out to the garage, I'm assuming.) So I watched the fireplace while he ran to his friend Jared's up the street to get some plywood and he drilled the plywood into the bricks and then caulked around it. Hopefully that took care of the problem. We knew it was back there somewhere and set mouse traps and poison, and when Josh checked the trap a few nights ago, it had shut, but no mouse inside, so he had to re-set it. Stupid mouse. Hopefully it is GONE!!! It gives me the heebie jeebies.

Houston, we have a smile!

I could tell that Brecken has been trying to smile for the past few days, so I've been watching carefully. Last night, Josh got the first smile! Then the second, third and fourth! How many smiles have I gotten? NONE. We must have a daddy's boy on our hands. Either that or Josh is funny looking. :) Brecken is 6 weeks old today, and I wondered how far "behind" he'd be in milestones like smiling, since he was a preemie. My nephew Ryan smiled a week and a half earlier than Brecken did, so Brecken's not doing too bad!! Way to go, Buddy!

We had another extremely busy week last week. Josh's mom and dad came for a couple days and as soon as they left, Josh's brother, sister-in-law and their two kids came to visit. They'd actually been here all week hunting, but staying with Annie's cousin. They spent the later part of the week at our house. Now, with no company, it's time to get back into our routine.

busy week

We had a busy week last week, that's why this hasn't been updated in a while. Wednesday, Brecken turned one month old! That was celebrated by taking a trip to the doctor for his one month check up. Brecken wasn't excited by that because he had to get naked. :) He's gained a pound since being released from the hospital! Yay! He's up to 7 pounds, 5 1/4 ounces. He's also just over 20 inches long. Small in the percentiles though, which we expect for a preemie. His head is in the 25th percentile, his length in the 20th percentile, and his weight in the 10th percentile. Dr. Jake wasn't concerned though, since he was so early. As long as he keeps growing, he's good. The rest of his check up was great. Everything looked perfect, including his ears (thank goodness since Josh had so many problems with his ears as a baby) and his chest tube incision. It is still very noticable and will probably have it for the rest of his life, but Dr. Jake said it should fade sometime.

Thursday, my mom and dad came to visit. My dad hasn't seen Brecken since he was still in the NICU and my mom hasn't seen him since he was still in the Infant Care Center. My sister and Ryan came over for the afternoon too, because we had a baby shower at my school. My friend Deb threw it for me. It was supposed to be in September, but plans had to change. :) We got lots of great gifts from my staff and we sure appreciate everyone's kindness!

Friday, Josh's team went to Pine Bluffs to play football. They lost, so they won't be going to any playoff games. :( My mom and I spent Friday re-arranging my kitchen and dining room and getting a good cleaning in.

Yesterday we all went to Casper where Brecken got to meet his Great-grandma (my mom's mom) and his great aunt and uncle, Leona and Kent. We went up there for the State Marching competition. It was held outside this year and the weather was beautiful. We got home last night.

Well, that's the update for here. We're just being lazy today, watching football on TV and catching up on some sleep.

Kara

due date

I forgot to mention earlier that today is Brecken's due date! And instead of having a baby, we have a 4 week old at home. He's 4 weeks old today. He was exactly 4 weeks early. Man, how our lives have changed in the past 4 weeks!

first day trip

We went to Cheyenne on Saturday, just to hang out. There wasn't anything to do at home, so we decided to get out and have some fun. We had some coupons for the Sears Portrait Studio so we got some pictures of Brecken taken. He was awake the whole time which really surprised me, he's usually asleep all morning! My sister and her husband and 3.5 month old came over too and got pictures taken as well. Then we all had lunch at Red Lobster, where Josh's cousin Kevin joined us. Then we did some shopping in the afternoon, then came home. Brecken did great. Soon, we'll have to get back to Cheyenne for Josh's cousin's wife to get some pictures of Brecken. Stacey does the most beautiful pictures- I can't wait.

Also Saturday night, Brecken got the hang of nursing! I don't know why he got it all of a sudden, but he did. He's slowly getting better- but it's hard work and he falls asleep after not too long. But that's OK- baby steps. We have to build up his stamina for nursing just like we did weeks ago with his bottle. So he's taking most of his food still from his bottle, but we'll get there. Slowly. :) I know he can do it though. I remember back to Children's where he was only eating 10 ml's of milk from his bottle and it would take FOREVER for him to get it down, and most of the time it had to go down his feeding tube because after about 4 ml's or so, he was just so, so tired. Now he's sometimes eating 100 ml's in one sitting and scarfing it down! What a trooper he is. I'm so proud of him and his accomplishments, and I tell him that every day.

This morning, in the middle of the night actually, while feeding Brecken, I started thinking about those little babies that are probably still in Denver. I think about them a lot and wonder how they are doing. Little Joseph, with the cleft palate (did I spell that even close to correctly?) and the shortened lower jaw who had surgery to lengthen the jaw a couple days before we left for Laramie again, I wonder if he's breathing better. The poor guy couldn't breathe and it would make him panic and then he REALLY couldn't breathe, poor baby. And little Karson across the hallway who was born at 28 weeks, I wonder if his mommy got to transfer him back closer to home like she was hoping to. And little Sam down the hallway, who was also born at 36 weeks and had Down Syndrome, I wonder how he's doing. His mommy is a biology teacher so she and Josh had quite the conversation. I wonder if he's home yet. And baby Gia, whose little cubical had exploded with pink things. I never did find out why she was there. And I will never, ever forget the mommy and daddy of the little baby born the first Wednesday we were in Denver, who was taken off life support 4 days later on Saturday. His station was next to ours in the NICU. His blood was being taken out of him and run through an ECMO machine, to put oxygen back in the blood or something like that, because his heart couldn't do it for him. That poor mommy and daddy, what a hard decision to take your 4 day old off life support. I thank God for my little boy's health. He was certainly sick, but by FAR one of the healthiest babies there. Thank the Lord.

My little man is waking up and is ready to eat- better get to it. It could take a while. :)

Kara

recognize this baby?

Here he is, Brecken Levi, on the hospital website! We didn't get the picture taken like all the other babies when he was born, since Brecken left in an airplane. So we had it taken when we left the second time. :)

http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/babypage_view.asp?URLID=3Z3A7M5B0F

We went to Josh's game against Hanna this afternoon but it started pouring rain so we had to leave. :( Saratoga was ahead 28-6 with 9 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, so I'm assuming we might win.

If anyone is interested in how much a trip to Denver Children's Hospital costs, we got the grand total in the mail today. Not as much as I thought it might be, but enough to take your breath away still! $54,648.33. About $5400/day on average. It didn't break it down into how much his IV was, chest tube, diapers, etc. It just gave us a grand total. Yikes. Thank God for insurance.

hungry, hungry hippo

We've had a hungry, hungry hippo lately! Last night, Brecken at 65 at 8:30, 60 at 10:00, 90 at 12:30 a.m., 80 at 4:00 a.m., 60 at 7:00 a.m., and 70 at 10:00 a.m. And now he's squirming again at 11:30, I thought I might get lunch in before he does, but it's not looking that way! Glad he's hungry. It'll be interesting to see what he weighs when he goes in for his one-month shots. He'll be one month old next week already- man, time flies.

While I'm here, I just want to thank everyone that has sent gifts for Brecken. I really am writing thank you notes, it's just taking a bit of time. (But I AM halfway through the list!!) You WILL get one though!

first real bath

Brecken had his first real bath Sunday night and hated every minute of it, as you can see by the picture. The only part he didn't scream through was getting wrapped up in his towel at the end. :) He doesn't even like getting his face wiped- he screamed at me for that yesterday, too! I told him we can't go out in public meeting people with a messy face! (We were on our way to my school to help my sub out with some things after school yesterday.)

He slept for 4 1/2 hours this morning before I made him wake up to eat. He last ate at 5:00 a.m., and I woke him up at 9:30. He must have been sleepy! He's been sleeping pretty good (KNOCK ON WOOD), only waking up when he's hungry at night. He's awake a little more in the day, looking around at things. The dogs are still in love with him and love sticking their noses in the slats of the cradle and then growling at us- like they want him to come out and play! Charlie spends most of her time sleeping, so I'm not sure what she thinks of him still.

we should buy stock in Pampers.

Brecken hasn't even been home a week and we already had to empty the diaper genie. MAN, that kid goes through diapers like there's no tomorrow. The fortifier packets are all gone though, so maybe drinking regular milk will help with that problem. And his belly button FINALLY fell off last night, (now we can give him a real bath!!) so maybe he won't leak through his diapers so much anymore because now we can pull them up all the way. That will help with the wet jammie problem. :) He's been getting on his own schedule to eat since sometimes he's STARVING after 2 hours instead of 3 hours. I'm not going to make him wait an hour just to keep him on schedule, that would be mean! He's also eating a lot more now- he can eat 70 ml's instead of 60 sometimes. Last night he ate 70 at 9:00 p.m., 70 at 11:30 p.m., 60 at 1:45 a.m., and 70 at 6:00 a.m., I believe. He's hungry sometimes after 2 hours, sometimes after 4 hours. I guess it all averages out to 3 hours. :)

The dogs were so excited to get home on Friday. They've been really good with Brecken, too. Birdie likes to kiss Brecken on the head and Hogan likes to know what's going on, but after that, they leave him alone. They've only gotten up once with me to feed him in the night, too. When they came in on Friday, Brecken was in the cradle in the living room. They both could smell a new smell right away, and figured out it was in the cradle. They stuck their noses through the slats- it was pretty cute. Then Hogan discovered he could put his head over the cradle and see the baby up close. They haven't bothered him though- they've been really good with him!

Josh's team lost on Friday. :( They played Burns and lost 28-6 or something like that. Now Burns HAS to beat Southeast and Saratoga has to beat Pine Bluffs if they want to be in the playoffs. That's the only way it will happen now. Josh is pretty nervous. I just became a Burns fan so they'll beat Southeast. :)

Being home sure is nice!! We've already been on a couple outings- one to see Josh at school during lunch, and last night we went to the head coach's house for dinner with the other coaches and their families.

Nights are getting better too. We have to work on our swaddling technique- if Brecken gets his hands out of the blanket he will wake up. That happened several times the first two nights home. Last night we must have done a better job because he only woke up to eat. We also have to work on our diaper technique. The first night, Brecken peed through 3 sets of jammies and 4 blankets. The second night he peed through 2 jammies and 2 blankets. Last night, he got to wear the same set of jammies and the same blanket all night long, so we must have done a better job at securing those diapers! :)

This afternoon we're going to Brecken's first football game- Saratoga vs. Burns. Josh's mom is coming this afternoon, his brother Jeff is coming this evening, and Josh's dad is coming on Sunday. Jeff has never met Brecken so it'll be exciting! I'm also super excited for Lennie to bring my dogs back to me. I miss them! It's so quiet in the house without them!

Here's picture of my little guy with no tubes or wires!!

we're FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NO MORE HOSPITALS!!!!!!!!!!! BRECKEN GETS TO GO HOME!!!! The pediatrician released him from the hospital this morning. WHOO-HOO! I'm so excited. I haven't gotten very far yet since I don't have my own car here in Laramie. My brother-in-law David is on a business trip this week though, and I have his car to drive around, so we got as far as my sister Kristen's house. (I had my car seat here and used my nephew Ryan's base that is in David's car.) Josh will come get me after work tonight. Then we'll be home for real. YAY!!!!!

I also had my doctor's appointment this afternoon, my 2-week post-c-section check up. I'm within 10 pounds of my original weight, and I'm excited about that! My incision healed great. And the nurse saw Brecken and gasped, then said, "He looks like Josh!!" She couldn't get over how much the little guy looks like his daddy. No mistaking who this kid belongs to! :)

Come on, clock, hurry up! I want to go home!!!

Here he is, my beautiful little boy!!

Nothing TOO too exciting to report today, besides Brecken getting to have visitors. He got to come to a hospital room where they let us stay during the day with us today. That meant his 3 month old cousin Ryan got to visit and they got to meet for the very first time. They had matching football outfits on, it was pretty cute. He also got to meet Josh's Uncle Bryan and Aunt Anne this afternoon. It was nice to have him in our own room. He's off all his monitors and oxygen so we got to pick him up and walk wherever we wanted with him! That is a nice feeling.

His last bottle of the day got eaten all by him too. It took FOREVER but he was a trooper and did it. Daddy was a trooper and got him to finish it too.

Kara

in laramie

Well, here we are in Laramie. Yesterday morning we got Brecken loaded up in the ambulance isolet (he looked so cute in real clothes! An outfit daddy picked out for him.) and got out of Denver about 9:30 or so. We got here just in time for him to eat lunch. Brecken was a great rider- slept the whole time! He was a good eater in Laramie, too- 40 ml at noon, 32 ml at 3:00, 50 ml at 6:00, and Daddy got here just in time to feed him his 9:00 bottle, where he ate 46 ml. He must have a stomach irritation though, he keeps puking. One time was projectile. Gross. I'm wondering if it's the fortifier they put in his milk to give it more calories to gain more weight.

We saw the doctor yesterday too. I asked him why Brecken can't be like the other babies, eating what they can when they're hungry, instead of this 58 ml every 3 hours thing. He said we have to make sure Brecken knows how to eat well enough to gain weight. He's a half ounce away from hitting his birth weight again, so maybe it won't be TOO long before we can finally go home!!

They took his oxygen off yesterday too! Surprised all of us since Laramie is at such a high elevation! But when we left the hospital last night he had been off it for 5, almost 6 hours and was doing great! Hopefully they were able to leave it off overnight.

He also had to have a new feeding tube put down his nose- somehow, the one he had fell out. Hopefully, we won't need that for long either.

It snowed here in Laramie! Good thing Josh was able to make it over for the weekend. His football team won! Against Southeast! The score was 20-8. HOORAY!

Kara

we're moving again!

Brecken ate all 58 ml's of his bottle this morning. Hooray! Then he was scheduled for an echocardiogram (news to us...) to see if the heart murmur they've been hearing is a "real" one or what they call a PPS one, which will go away on it's own. The person that did the echo said it was the PPS one and not a "real" one. So that's good. Of course, it was scheduled during his feeding time so we missed his window of opportunity and he only ate 15 ml's. Frustrating. And that was after we had a visit from the child developmentalist who came to visit, I think our nurse told her to visit with us since we were *heaven forbid* feeding Brecken in bed sometimes to help him stay awake. She then proceeded to stand over Brecken and analyze every movement he made, like after he was unswaddled, he streches, and she said that wasn't stretching, it was "searching for his boundaries". Whatever, lady. After you were all bundled up and you couldn't move, wouldn't you want to stretch, too?

And I'm less than impressed with our nurse today. I pumped some milk at 11:00 this morning and I could not find her again until 1:00. She said the milk was still OK, but I'm not too sure. She did pop in at 12 to give us Brecken's milk for his feeding, but she just put it on the counter and left and with the developmentalist and the echo going on and on, I couldn't give her the milk I pumped. She hasn't been too helpful.

The GOOD news is though, we get to transfer! We're pretty sure we're transfering to Laramie, but it might be Cheyenne. Last I knew, they were checking with Laramie to see if they could handle a baby with oxygen and a feeding tube. I'm pretty sure they can since they were talking about a feeding tube while we were there the first time. While the developmentalist was jabbering at us, I heard the nurse pick up the phone and go get the nurse practitioner because a Dr. DeHart was calling, so I wonder what was said. We haven't heard an update. But I know we get to go, because Josh called our insurance company this morning and asked if we could, and they said, "Sure. We cover up to $1000 for ambulance rides so just tell them where you want to go and we'll get you there!" HOORAY! It would be so much better for us to be in Laramie, because Josh has to go back to work tomorrow. So being in Laramie would be much, much more convienient. I don't know if we'll get to go this afternoon or tomorrow, but it's going to happen! Yay! If we go tomorrow, I'll just ride in the ambulance with Brecken.

The insurance also said they cover 100% of Flight for Life trips, so that is excellent!!

So that's the news for today. I'll keep you posted about moving.

Kara, Josh, and Brecken

another new record!

Almost a full bottle!! Brecken just ate 53 ml's out of 58. (They upped his feedings again and are putting some vitamins in my milk to try to boost his weight a little- he's at 6 lbs 3.5 oz right now.) WHOO-HOO! Another new record! We tried the naked in bed thing again and it seemed to work! He's pooped from it but he stayed awake for about a half our after he was done. He was just sucking on his binkie and looking at us. He spit out his binkie a few times, but one of those times he grabbed it with his hand and put it back in his mouth! Don't know how he managed to do that!

The nurse wasn't going to even tube feed him the rest of his feeding, he only missed out on 5 ml's. I think we'll tube feed him at 6:00 to give him another break (the nurse said he slept right through the noon hour) and try again at 9. If he does this good every other feeding, that's great. Then tomorrow we can start adding more feedings in with his bottle.

I keep forgetting to say that he had his hearing test the other day and passed. That's good. :)

what a trooper.

We decided last night that we want to put in for a transfer back to Laramie since Brecken's only real problem is his eating now. That way, Josh could go back to work and I could stay in Laramie and it's much closer to home and I can stay with my sister. She said she'll go call the people she needs to call and let us know. It will be up to the insurance people, if they think they'll be saving money or not. She said they'll ask her best guess on how long we'll be in the hospital still and she said her BEST guess is one more week. Obviously it's up to Brecken but that's what she's guessing. So if the insurance thinks it's in their best interest, we'll get to transfer. If not, we're stuck here.

Brecken was a trooper this morning. Overnight, not so good on feedings. He only ate 2ml's at 6:00 this morning. But when we fed him at 9:00, he ate 45! WHOO-HOO!! Best ever! He only had to eat 10 in his tube. He's going to get it all in his tube at noon since this morning really tuckered him out. The nurse said he wouldn't do anything probably at noon, so best to give him a rest and try again at 3. Josh and I are going out for lunch outside the hospital, we figured if he's eating through his tube at noon it's a good time to go out. We don't want to miss any awake time if we don't have to, but he'll be sleeping through his noon feeding.

During his 9:00 feeding, he didn't start out so well. He fell asleep after 15 ml's. He had made a mess in his new diaper though, so we undressed him to change his diaper and change his jammies. He ate the rest of that while laying in his bed with only his diaper on. So maybe he needs to be a naked eater to eat so much! :) We'll try it again at 3:00- sure doesn't hurt!

hurry up and wait.

Still a slow day- we switched to the VentAir bottles at lunch to see if that would help. His other nipples seemed to be a little too fast and overwhelming. Plus, when he stopped sucking, it kept going in his mouth and he ended up wearing a lot of milk. These new bottles seem to help him control his intake better. The most he's had on his own though is 25 ml today. That's out of 55. Almost halfway there. Some day, he might realize how to eat the whole thing, since that's what he has to do in order to go home! The hurry up and wait is really trying my patience.

They started the check-out process with us today though. We had to watch 3 videos- one on carseats, one on oxygen at home, and one on CPR. We have to watch them before we go home, and I've seen several sets of parents have to wait around for forever before they go home after being told they get to, just to watch the videos. So I'm glad we got those out of the way. That will save an hour or two on the real check-out day, whenever that will be. We were also told we could get our carseat check done any time- we just have to bring the carseat up, put Brecken in it, and for 30 minutes they make sure his breathing is good and stuff. We didn't want to go out to the car to get that today but we'll bring it in with us tomorrow morning when we get here.

not too much new

We just saw the doctor, not much new from yesterday. He took 30% of his milk orally yesterday. It would've been more but his nurse last night put two of his feedings down his tube and only one with the bottle, and he hate 44 mls with that one! Hooray for the 3:00 a.m. feeding!! His 9:00 one this morning wasn't AS good but still not too bad- he took 27 out of 60 mls. He just gets so worn out from eating. I wish he'd wake up a little so we could be on our way!!