A Sigh of Relief

Marlin and Thor did great today.  Both are enjoying the benefits of narcotics and being sillier than usual.  Thank you for all the prayers and kind thoughts.  Also, just want to add that there is another Ferrara in the world, so brace yourselves!  Matthew Anthony was born today to my cousin Matt and Christine.  All are doing well.  We are all truly blessed.

Our 5th Anniversary

Today is our 5^th wedding anniversary.  This is one we will never forget!  As I type this note, Thor and Marlin are in surgery.  Marlin is having his hernia repaired and Thor is having his wrist repaired.  Two weeks ago, when Thor was in Idyllwild with Gus, he fell skateboarding and broke his wrist.  He didn’t want to go to the emergency room, so he waited until he could get an appointment with his doctor.  By the time he saw his doctor and found out it was broke, it was a week later.  His doctor sent him to the orthopedic surgeon yesterday and the surgeon said he needed surgery to put a screw in to keep the bone together.  The surgeon only does surgery on Fridays, so he had to have it done today or wait another week to have it done.  Needless to say the last 24 hours have been a little crazy. 

Both surgeries have started.  Mom and Gus are with Thor at one hospital and I am here with Marlin.  I will send an update when I know more.  Please keep them in your prayers.  We can really use them today.

Gus's First Hold

Gus was able to hold Marlin for the first time on his last visit.  Daddy had given him a 5 pound bag of rice at the grocery store to feel how heavy Marlin is.  When Gus was holding Marlin, he said "He not that heavy".  It was super cute.  Gus made a finger painting for Marlin to hang in his crib.  He gave it to him when he visited.  Here are a few pictures.

Six and Counting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3bJI7yM2P8&feature=youtu.be

 

So guess who is 6 pounds!  He is is 6 pounds and 1 ounce.  He is doing so great!  We hope to have him home next week.  They took out his core pack (feeding tube) on Wednesday.  He is eating everything from me or the bottle and still gaining weight.  He has to have his hernia repaired before he comes home, but other wise we are doing great.  Here is a video of his bath time.

Five and Counting

The big news is that Marlin is now over 5 pounds, 5 lbs. 2 oz. to be exact.  He is growing like crazy.  We weren't sure we would reach this point, but here we are.  He is getting to look more and more like a real baby. 

He is a little eating machine, boobie or bottle, he doesn't care.  He will eat anything.  He does get more tired as the day goes on, but his 9 am feed is usually really good and then tapers off from there until his 9 pm feed, which is usually great again.

Mr. Big Boy has graduated to a new open crib.  He is able to maintain his body heat and therefore can be in an open crib.  I am not sure if he likes it much because it is very noisy in his room, but we like being able to bend down and give him kisses after we tuck him all in.  In the isolette, we couldn't do that because of the lid.

We were told on Wednesday that they were going to reconnect his intestines this week.  However, after further discussion we agreed that it was better for him to wait another month or so.  It amazes me what they do for convenience of everyone but the patient.   When I asked the surgeon why we were doing it so soon, he said because everyone (the nurses) were complaining about how difficult it was to take care of his ilieostomy.  Sure it is a little out of the ordinary, but it is not that big of a deal.  You are still changing a diaper except it on his side and not his bottom.  Once we finally got to the bottom of it, we realized it makes no sense to do it now.   

He continues to grow and be well.  Thanks to all the prayers and good thoughts you are all sending.  We really do appreciate all of it.  Please keep them coming our way so we can go home and be a family.

Ha ha, I took out my feeding tube again!

What me? I would never take my feeding tube out.

Bottle Feeding

Not a big deal for most kids, but for Marlin it is!  He took his first bottle tonight, Sept 10, 2012.  Daddy had to give it to him because we want him to know that when he is with me he gets the boobs only.  He is pretty good with that, but we don't want to take any chances.  He did really great, he ate 41ml of his 49 ml feed from the bottle before he tuckered out.

Flipping Dad the bird.  Where are my damn boobies?

Milk coma after chugging the "goods"

We were pretty excited that he did that well on his first try.

Newest trick

Marlin's newest trick is to pull his feeding tube out of his nose.  He did this one morning and the nurse didn't notice until I pulled back his blanket and he had it in his hand.  It was nice to see his beautiful face!

Fashionista

Now that marlin has only the heart leads and the feeding tube, it is easier to put some clothes on him.  We did have a little preemie t-shirt on him, but it was way too big.  But here are some photos of a few other clothing items we did put on him.

This little hat came from the Forsyth's.  So cute, but a little big still.  It will be perfect this winter.

Mom bought a package of these little "sneaker" socks.  He has them in all different colors.  Still a little wide but they fit in length.

Aunt Dani and Uncle Shawn bought this little booties and hat set.  The outfit that goes with it is still too big, but we are getting plenty of use of the hat and booties.

Daddy TIme

Thor spent most of last week in Idyllwild with Gus.  When he came back, he was ready for a little snuggle with Marlin.  I think Marlin was ready to snuggle too!

A Grandma's Love

Marlin liked Gram Gram Ju Ju's purple hair.

Four and counting!

Marlin is doing great.  The big news is he broke 4 pounds.  Matter of fact he is 4 pounds and 2 ounces!  Gus thinks he is a chunk.

He had his eyes tested last week and his retinas are fully mature with no damage.  This is a big concern with preemies, especially micro preemies (which Marlin was).  Their eyes can’t handle the oxygen that they receive through the ventilator because their veins are so tiny.  We just assumed he would have eye trouble as he grew older.  He still can have issues with his eyes, but this was still very good news that there is no damage as of now.

He has really been getting the hang of eating (captain obvious, he has been gaining weight).  The cool thing is that his doctor, Dr. Phillips is a big advocate of breast before bottle.  So they have been letting me breast-feed him as much as he wants.  The little bugger is a natural.  He has done better then Gus did at full term.  All the nurses and doctors are so impressed with the tenacity with which he breast feeds.  He has been able to eat almost three complete feeds from the breast.  This may not sound impressive, but it really is.  He still gets most of his feeds through his feeding tube, but as he gets stronger, he will breast feed more and more.

Now that he is over 1800 grams, they are starting to wean him from the isolette.  The biggest advantage of the isolette is that it helps keep his temperature for him.  But as he gets bigger he needs to be doing that on his own.  Yesterday they started by leaving his isolette top open for most of the day.  He did pretty well, but by 7 pm he was getting cold.  As nice as it will be to have him in a bassinette, we kind of like the isolette because the NICU is one noisy place.  He is more protected from all the noise (the cries, beeps and alarms that are always present).  We realize that he is going to have to get used that eventually.

Octopus Garden

Gus really needed Fall clothes. So Nonni and I took him to Carters to do a little shopping.  After that we went to the Rain Forest café.  Gus wasn’t too much into the rain forest, especially after the “thunder storm” they put on every 30 minutes.  However, he really enjoyed the salt-water aquarium we sat next to.  The other thing he really liked was the balloon guy.  They had a guy walking from table to table making balloon animals.  This guy was good!  He made Gus a balloon octopus.  Gus thought this was pretty cool and insisted on taking him in the bath that night.  Here are a few pictures form the bath.  The last one is with his toy frog that our friends, Xabier and Jon gave him.  He loves it!

He thought it made a good hat too!

 

A Little Hold

Nonni finally got in on the action!  She held Marlin.  I know how hard it was for me to wait to hold Marlin, but poor Nonni had to wait even longer.  However, now she is able to hold him and is anjoying every minute of it.

 

 

In the swim

This summer has been one of the hottest summers I can remember.  We have air conditioning at the RMH, thank God.  However, when Gus comes to visit, staying in the house all day is not an option.  We have been fortunate to be able to visit the Dreyson Center which has a pool.  Gus has come a long way with his swimming in just a few outings.  The best is his ability to go under water now.  As long as he has his goggles on, he will go under to "see" the Orca whale family.  (We pretend a lot these days)  Here are a few pictures we took with the underwater camera.

 

 

 

Getting ready to head to the pool.