Un-maternity Pics & an Update

Like any modern girl I totally pinned a bazillion maternity pictures to replicate on Pinterest but life had other plans so we improvised. :) Our friend Libby of Captured Moments Tx took these over the weekend and I think they turned out adorable!

These are the shoes we wore at our wedding with her shoes in the middle.

Alice Update: She's doing great!! She pulled her feeding tube out and the nurse felt that meant she didn't need it. ;) She's a feisty little thing. She's eating lots and is up to a little over 4 pounds.  Her nurse the other day said "she's tiny so she shouldn't be doing this well but she doesn't know she's tiny so she does." That's our girl! She's having a few tests run and gets to practice sitting in her car seat because it looks like she'll be coming home by the end of the week! Check out her little cheeks!

Her release date isn't set in stone and we're trying to be realistic but it will be lovely to have her home. And we are SO thankful to everyone for the continued prayers and encouragement. We couldn't have got through this without it. 

Until next time....

Her Wonderland - Progress!

Sorry, we've been busy. Between getting the house ready and visiting the NICU, I haven't had time to blog. 

I'll start with an Alice update. Little Missy is doing great! She's bottle feeding and breast feeding and has had no trouble with either. She's over 4 pounds now! She's still the cutest baby in the NICU. ;) And if she keeps doing what she's doing - she'll get to come home soon!! That brings me joy.

I'm still working on a few projects for her room but here are some progress pictures in the mean time.

 

I didn't want a baby room - I wanted a Little Girl's room. And the room is filled with things from her loved ones past and present. She will be surrounded by love. :)

I'll go in to the details later. 

Now I'm heading up to spend some time with our girl. ;)

Until next time...

Next to Me

I brag on my Beloved all the time - even when I'm sharing silly things he says or the times he makes my eye twitch. I feel like I won the Husband Lottery when it comes to my partner. He is my heart and I'm thankful for him always. And he's had a stressful few weeks and he deserves a sappy love letter. ;)

While I was in the hospital it fell to him to maintain the house, dog, work, insurance, correspondence, decisions, paperwork, etc - and he handled it like a rock star! All while trying to not worry too much about his sick wife and tiny baby.

The day Alice was born he left work and came up to the hospital because I didn't answer my cell phone and he got worried. When he arrived, mom let him know I was down in Radiology having a doppler scan on my arms. Within a few minutes a "Code Blue in Radiology" went through the hospital and they ran down the stairs.

I don't remember anything but waking up back in my hospital room with a visibly upset husband and a slew of fast moving medical professionals asking me all kinds of questions. We had a baby a few hours later. Apparently while the Radiology techs were delivering the results I had a seizure on the table and ended up on the floor where they found me - hence the Code Blue.

Several days later when I felt more like me I had a nurse that was present tell me to never doubt my husband loves me. And while it's good to hear from someone on the outside, I already knew.

He's got a bit of a soft spot when it comes to me. ;)

When I was in my car accident and he arrived on the scene he immediately came to me and hugged me and asked me if I was okay. The tow truck driver said "wow, usually the first thing people ask about is the car." My Beloved said "I couldn't care less about the car" and I smiled.

Because he loves me first.

Always has.

And now he loves her too - and it brings me so much joy to see our tiny little girl in his arms.

Alice and her Daddy

My mom used to tell him to find a normal girlfriend before we got married (she was joking....I think) and when I say "see - you totally should have found a normal girlfriend", he says "you're normal!" Foolish boy blinded by love! ;)

He is my best friend, my support, my encourager (that's not a word but I don't care.) He makes me laugh, he doesn't run when I cry and he tolerates my crazy.

And I love him. A whole lot.

I heard this song a few months ago and it makes me think of Daniel. I never have to doubt that he will be by my side.

I scared him and that breaks my heart but he seems to be recovered. Our little family seems to be recovering well and for that I'm thankful to a healing God with a plan. And I'm thankful He sent me my Beloved, for my Beloved is mine. 

And I'd be a hot mess without him!

Daniel, thanks for loving me no matter what. I love you. A whole lot!

Until next time....

Alice Update

On Thursday, Alice will be 4 weeks old. 

4 weeks! We've been parents for an entire month. Crazy.

She has been moved to the NICU 2 and now weighs 3 pounds and 7 ounces. She is completely off her oxygen and seems to be adjusting well! She is maintaining her own body temp which means she can wear the tiniest little outfits I've ever seen. :) They will start assessing her at feedings to see how alert she is because the next step is bottle feeding. After bottle feeding is coming home! 

She can't come home until after this weekend - this weekend we take our infant care class. If she comes home before this weekend we won't know how to bathe her! ;)

She's doing so great! And we're so thankful for the prayers. I seem to be doing much better as well and now I get to see all my specialists all over again.

I saw the Rheumatologist this week for my check up and he ordered some blood tests to try to figure out what's going on. 9 vials of blood! I counted. 9! I'm thankful I have a full week to recover before I see the Hematologist; she'll probably want her own blood. Yeesh. ;)

Until next time.....

What's in a Name

It's a lot of pressure naming a child! 

We came up with lists and tossed around several options. We found that we were drawn to more classic names and Alice stuck out. We had several options when it came to middle names as well but Anne seemed to flow the best. 

I'm not that big on name meanings but I had a friend ask me what 'Alice' meant so I looked it up - and it made it even more perfect. 

 "Timberley" means 'Tall Ruler' - ruler like the Queen, not yardstick. ;)

 "Daniel" means 'God is my Judge'. 

"Alice" means 'Of the Nobility'. :)

So Alice Anne it was!

And she's our perfect little Princess.

Alice Update: She's been moved to NICU 2 and is doing really well!! She's awfully wiggly and seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. And we couldn't be more proud. ;)

Until next time.....

Bed Building

I fell in LOVE with this baby bed. It's dainty and simple and perfect. And her very excited grandparents felt she needed it to. ;) 

Side Story - 10:15 pm the doorbell rings and my Beloved and I look at each other. I have an overactive imagination and I've seen too many seasons of Criminal Minds so I'm convinced it's a serial killer. My rational Beloved looks through the peep hole and says "it's a baby bed." He then goes on to say that he'd like to be upset with the FedEx driver for dropping it off so late but if he's still delivering things at 10 pm - he's had a much rougher day than we have. :) 

Another Side Story - the bed arrives during a week our AC was going out and it was HOT so we had no energy to build the bed in the heat. We had to endure a large box (which totally freaked the dog out) for several days thinking we'd build it as soon as the AC was replaced. But by Saturday at 8 am with the AC being replaced - we couldn't wait any longer and we built her bed in the heat and enjoyed every minute. 

Yay! FINALLY!! 

Daniel's aunt encouraged us to read all of the directions. Daniel doesn't need to be told this - he likes directions. He pulls out the sheet and starts with "congratulations on your recent purchase..." and I sighed and snapped a picture. ;) I'd have skipped to the picture part of the directions. It's a good thing Alice has a very patient dad who insists on knowing all the information before he gets started. 

Keep in mind - we had no AC and it's 8 am so I look a hot mess and I don't care. I didn't actually use these items - I assisted by supporting the sides while my Beloved did all the work.

 Progress!!! It turns out that building a baby bed isn't as complicated as we thought. 

ALL DONE!! 

And it's perfect!

Her Wonderland - the Before

When we moved in to our house, we painted the middle bedroom green thinking one day it would be a nursery so when we found out we were expecting - that was done! HOLLA! ;) 

However, we moved in to our house a few years ago and the 'future nursery' had become a 'catch all' room for stuff so while we didn't have to paint - we had a lot of work to do. It's mostly finished but I want to post the progress and some of the projects we worked on before I show you the finished project. 

Here are the befores.....

See - 'catch all'. 

The room has fantastic built in's and a sweet little window seat that will be PERFECT for a little girl. 

And thanks to Pinterest - I have lots of projects to fill the space! 

Holy Hormones Batman

I'm a crier. I have been all my life. And I did really well while I was pregnant but my body is all kinds of confused and my hormones are going BANANAS! My poor, poor Beloved. I have all sorts of feelings and they run from hot to cold in a heartbeat.

I have guilt that I'm broken and I couldn't carry her to term. Then I have guilt because some women can't even get pregnant and here I am feeling bad I had her early. Or some women deliver too early and things don't end well. I have guilt I'm not up at the NICU 24 hours a day. I have guilt because I can't seem to do anything normal even though I pretend we did everything right. 

I'm thankful that in spite of all my medical issues - she's doing REALLY well and seems to be unaffected by my medical emergency. I'm thankful she's where she is and getting the care she's getting. We delivered at Mom's hospital and that's where she is so she has a slew of nurse friends that visit her daily. ;) Mom gets daily text reports on little Alice. I'm thankful I'm healing. 

I feel loss that things I planned are all screwy now. Sick leave is now complicated, I won't get traditional maternity pictures and our OB thinks it's wise to not try again. That one's pretty tough. 

And it's selfish really - and then comes the guilt again. 

I worry about having to use the Infant CPR class we're scheduled to take; I'm not sure I'm strong enough for that. I worry with us not up there 24 hours a day - she'll know and not be attached to us. I worry I'll never produce enough milk to keep her fed when she comes home. 

Breastfeeding without a baby has been a challenge but it's going better and I've received lots of encouragement that has helped a lot. I just think my body had to adjust to not being pregnant. 

It's still an adjustment. But I'm doing better! I didn't cry at all on Tuesday! ;) But I had a peach yesterday and remembered how she would kick when I ate peaches and cried the entire time I ate it. Hot mess. 

We really are doing good and we're so thankful she's doing as well as she is. And while she has our heart - we're absolutely terrified at the idea of her coming home. She's SO TINY!! We don't know what to do with such a pocket child! My family has big babies! I weighed 9.6! So I'm at a loss when it comes to 2.6! Yeesh. 

And to top off everything - I have cramps and my boobs hurt. Being a girl blows. ;)

Until next time....

Night at the NICU

We like visiting little Alice after my Beloved gets off work. It's late and the NICU is quiet. We went up last night not intending to stay very long, just long enough to tell her we love her and to make sure she's growing like she's supposed to and not giving the nurses a hard time. 

When we arrived, the nurse let us know she got a bath and didn't like it. This worries her very clean parents. ;) We also got to bring home her bedding to wash. I've been able to hold her but not Skin to Skin which is apparently something that is very important to Momma and Baby. We had no intention of getting her out of her bubble. I worry it stresses her out but she's off her SiPAP machine and no longer has an IV so she's less plugged in so the nurse said it would be a perfect time. I wasn't prepared for this answer so I had to borrow Daniel's shirt. :) 

She wiggled and rested on my chest for an hour before her 11pm feeding. I'm not sure a premature baby that's only 2 weeks old should be lifting her head like our girl but she does - little wiggle worm. After the holding, the nurse says we could change her diaper. Uh oh. We haven't taken the class yet. 

So while the nurse isn't supervising the parents - Alice projectile poops all over her clean bed. Oops. Now we have two sets of bedding to clean. This means the nurse now needs help cleaning the bed and the baby. I'm pretty sure this is going in her chart. They might not let us bring her home. 


As she's looking at Daniel like "what are you people doing?" she pooped again in her clean diaper. The poor nurse. While we're scrambling to get the bed clean so her feeding can begin the nurse asks if she's our first.

Yep, how'd ya guess? ;)

She's doing really well. She's gaining weight and eating lots. When she's on her tummy, she pushes up with her hands and feet - I worry she'll roll out of her pea pod. She's too young to roll, right?! We're going to walk in one day and she'll be tapping on the side of her box asking to come home. :) 

Until next time.....

First Family Photo