Our new perspective...

We are... hmmm... I think the look on Ian's face describes it best...

We are slowly learning our new roles as parents and doing our very best :) Ian is thriving and he is growing and he is adorable! We LOVE having him home and I LOVE being able to kiss on him whenever I want - although I try not to do it so much while he's sound asleep (it's just so hard to restrain myself sometimes!!!).

We are all sorts of blurry :) It's been a wild ride trying to figure out sleep, eating, more sleeping, etc. Both for Ian and for me and Doug! Ian was pretty regimented on the schedule set by NICU, however, this is not necessarily the best schedule for him. We are thankfully able to adapt this a little and the little adaptations we've made seem to be working. His last doctors appointment showed that he grew almost a whole inch and he gained 10 ounces (they were hoping for 7 at best) so these are all very good signs. Whatever we're doing must be working :)

We are also enjoying more of his awake time as this is becoming more frequent throughout the day now... So much fun to interact with our little guy! We have been doing a few sessions of tummy-time every day to get him used to using his neck muscles and build up his strength. It's working! Our little bug rolled over for the first time already! How cool is that??? I'm not sure exactly, but that seems really early to me. I have to go get that book "What to Expect the First Year" so I know what to...expect LOL!!! I know that these types of resources are going to show average ages and that there may be differences in his stages due to his Downs, but it may help me to understand an average age, etc.

All in all, we are doing well and we are really enjoying all this time we get to spend together as a family! I am so thankful that Doug has the summer off and that he will be able to spend this time with Ian and I (although I'll be heading back to work in just a few short weeks!). What precious bonding time we will have together before our work lives start up again :)

Long overdue update...

So it's been forever since I've created another post... Needless to say things have been a little crazy, both good and bad.

We'll start with "scary week"...

I believe it all started around the week of May 23rd. Ian kept experiencing what they eventually discovered as acid reflux, but the way it manifested itself was truly the scariest thing I've ever experienced. I don't think this post will even do justice to the emotions I felt during this time. Basically what started happening was anytime we would feed him is he would have a sudden drop in his heart rate and he'd stop breathing to the point where he would turn blue. It was so scary!!! Of course the alarms would start going off and nurses would come in to see what was going on. His poor little immature body just didn't know how to handle the reflux and he would basically pause all of his crucial functions until everything was cleared. Sometimes he wouldn't clear himself though and the staff would have to stimulate him (i.e. rubbing him vigorously to "wake" him up etc.). I was also experiencing some pretty hefty post-partum mood swings and emotions so these situations did not help. It also didn't help that because of all these issues I couldn't sleep at night and was constantly worried about whether he was still safe and sound. Which only added to the increased emotional issues since I was also then becoming sleep deprived. I'm sure I was on the verge of losing my mind... This only lasted about a week thank God! He seemed to get over these "episodes" pretty quickly, but they kept occurring about once or twice a day. I felt so lucky that they occurred while he was still there and hooked up to monitors that would alert someone that there were issues - I don't even want to think about what the outcome would have been in this had happened while he was home with us :( That thought was another reason for my inability to sleep. I would fret over whether this WOULD happen once he came home. I was fairly sure that Doug and I would need to sleep in shifts so we could watch him 24 hours to make sure he was still breathing and his heart was still beating. Eventually, these issues all went away... We changed part of his "feeding plan" after an assessment by the feeding specialist and those changes worked! We were also told that he would not be coming home for at least 1 week after an "episode" so each time it occurred, we were able to pretty much determine that he would be coming home at the earliest one week later.

That all changed pretty quickly...

We received a phone call on Friday, June 3rd that Ian would be coming home that weekend!!! We were elated, and a little freaked out. This meant our ride on the "parenthood express" would be officially starting! Finally!!! 25 days after he was born, we were finally able to bring him home on Sunday, June 5th! Oh my goodness... What are we going to do? We have this fragile little baby that barely weighs 5 lbs and we are going to be his full-time caregivers? He used to have round the clock care by trained professionals that knew EXACTLY what they were doing and we didn't really have a clue. Hmmm... This is going to be interesting :) Poor little Ian! (Ian - I apologize in advance for the misguided adventures that you will soon face with your mommy and daddy. We will try our best, but please forgive us when we mess up!)

And the adventure truly begins...

So we brought Ian home and the next few days were all a blur. Very little sleep (sleeping in shifts would have been a terrific idea had either one of us been able to sleep!), and learning a whole new schedule. Thankfully, Ian's feeding schedule was pretty well structured since he was in NICU for so long and had a 3-hour rotation already established. However, these schedules, while I understand their necessity, are not really created based off of the need of the child. Ian's schedule wasn't really tuned to his wake/sleep schedule and we realized fairly quickly that he is awake during part of the times when he would need to be sleeping and then we would have to fight to get him to stay awake while he was eating. We've quickly changed his schedule and we're allowing him to tell us what he needs when... We are know that food is REALLY important to his growth and development so we want to make sure we are giving him enough and at this point his doctor says there is no such thing as over-feeding him, so we're just offering an amount and letting him eat as much as possible... He's been doing very well. At his last doctor's appointment he had gained 10 ounces. They were hoping for an ounce per day and there was a 1 week period of time between these check-ups so he had exceeded their expectations there. Woo hoo!!! He also grew almost a whole inch within that week as well. At this appt he weighed 5 lbs 14 oz and measured 19 1/2 inches long. This appt was just a day past his original due date so it made me wonder if this would have been his original measurements had he been carried to term? Probably not with his IUGR diagnosis, but it's still weird to think that I have a one month old baby on my due date.

More to updates to follow...