Spoiled with hugs & kisses

We are living the best days of our lives. With our two boys at home it is never a dull moment and every second that goes by makes us love life even more. Ethan has been spoiled with lots of little hugs and kisses and you would think it would mostly be coming from Jon and I but Mr. Brayden has us beat. He is in love with his little brother and constantly wants to kiss him and hug him...its adorable. Since Ethan's immune system is not the best we are constantly washing our hands and Brayden has become a little anal about it to. He constantly wants to wash his hands or sanitize them. He is seriously such a good big brother to Ethan.

Ethan had his first pediatrician appointment last Friday and it was not that eventful. It was them kind of getting caught up with Ethan's first 3 months and making sure he looked good...which he did. Right now my main focus is making sure he keeps gaining weight. When he was sick last week he lost lots of weight so its all about building that back up. When he was at the hospital they were only giving him about 2 oz of milk and the first day he was home we moved him up a little at a time and now he is at 3oz each feed...2oz was not cutting it for him anymore.

I have his routine down pretty good...he sleeps pretty much all morning and wakes up for his feedings but then afternoon time is party time in Ethan's world...especially during the time we eat dinner. His swing or bouncer doesn't work...this little one wants to be held and were okay with it. In our arms is where he wants to be! He eats about every two to three hours and goes a little longer during the night. Tomorrow is going to be the first time that I will have to take both boys out with just me...so hopefully Brayden can make it to preschool on time :)

Ethan's likes:

• Being held
• pacifier
• tummy time
• brayden singing "twinkle twinkle little star" to him
• falling asleep on big brother
• getting hair brushed after bathtime

Ethan's Dislikes:

• Bathtime
• diaper changing
• taking his multivitamins in the morning

Here are a few pictures of my boys :)



Not the best picture...was taken from my cell phone



Love his expressions...here he is waiting on the doctor



Kisses...



And some hugs

Brothers

Home...again!

Our little monkey is home again. He got discharged yesterday and doing so well. He was there a few extra days because they wanted to repeat a sleep study and then we had to wait for the results. But he is home now and we are enjoying our time as a family of four! Jon took a few days off so we are making the most of it. We are so happy and we are loving every second. Thank you for all the thoughts, prayers and support!

Tomorrow is his first pediatrician appointment...i'll update this weekend on that :)

Just when we thought things were starting to be wonderful...

Ethan winds up having to go back into the hospital. Last week we brought him home on Monday night and that night was perfect. He woke up every three hours to eat, slept and was a happy baby! Tuesday morning he woke up and he was fine but as the day went on he started being a little more lethargic and eating less and less. I had to wake him for his feedings and he was just not interested. He also started with a low grade fever. By the time Jon came home from work his fever had started going up in the low 100's and by 9 it was at 101.5. We knew something was not right, especially when cool washcloths and removing his clothes were not working anymore. So we took him to the ER...at the Los Alamitos Hospital. (worst mistake ever)

We never thought they would actually need to admit him so we didn't take him to Millers in Long Beach we just went to the closest hospital. It turns out that if a newborn comes to the ER with a fever over 100.4 (preemie or full term) and it wont go down they need to admit them. Well, Los Alamitos does not have a pediatrics ward so we had to get transferred. Since they already started all blood tests, we were not allowed to just leave. We had to wait for Los Al to transfer us and it turned our Millers didn't have ONE bed available. UGH! So after 11 hours...yes you read that right 11 HOURS in the ER we were finally transferred to Millers. Poor baby was so dehydrated because Los Al didn't start an IV until about the 6th hour in the ER! I can actually write a whole post on how much I hate that hospital.

Anyways, once we got to Millers they ran a few more tests, we had a few scares about what could be wrong with him but it turned out to be a viral infection AKA a common cold to adults. He is still in the hospital because sadly it took so much out of him. It gave him a few setbacks and today was the first day that he started to actually look and act like our little Ethan. So they want to run a couple more tests tomorrow, let him gain all his strength back and hopefully we will get him home again in a few days. We want to make sure that he is 120% before we take him home...we don't want to go back.

So this was actually the short story of our week. It was an emotionally draining week and Ethan deserves to have a normal life now! He has been through hell and back. But I have to say the 24 hours that I had both my boys under the same roof were the best 24 hours of my life! Can't wait for many, many more!

I will update when he comes home.

Here are a few pictures of Ethan's time at home...

First time meeting his brother...the doll in his hand is a Monkey he made for Ethan



Loves his little brother! The shaved area on Ethan's head is from his surgery

First bath at home

So adorable!

Home!

Its been a crazy past few days and I don't have much time right now but I did want to let everyone know we brought our little man home last night!!!! He had a great night at home and his big brother LOVES him...I mean kisses him every five min :) I will write more about the last few days when I get a chance and post some pics of Brayden meeting his little bro.



Here is a quick picture of Ethan at home:)



When a toddler finds your camera...

you find pictures like this when you upload.
He knows exactly what to do to make me smile. :)

 Close-up!

Perfect lips

And his perfect feet :)

"cheese"

Perfect Face

No more feeding tube yay! They have to run a few tests regarding his reflux...they need to see if thickening his milk will help and try a few other things. We will know more this week as to when he will be coming home :) Other than that is is doing well and just growing.

Here are two pictures...he has a full belly and is very content here :)

September Already?!?

Sorry I haven't been blogging much recently. Lets just say that trying to make time for two kiddos in two different places can make life crazy busy...but its worth every second. 

Tomorrow is Ethan's due date...September 2nd! Are we really here? Why isn't he home yet? The two questions I asked myself alot today and probably something everyone is wondering. He is so close but he had a little setback a few days back. Through out his stay at the hospital he was on a couple different medications and now that he is so close to coming home they decided it was time to start weaning him off some of them.
He is on something for his acid reflux...he will be coming home with that.
He was given caffeine (this is to help premature babies from having apnea spells) and was weaned off of that a few days ago.
The next medication was something for the fluid on his lungs (something else common with preemies). If there is fluid sitting on his lungs it makes it hard for him to breathe so the medication helped him pee it out. He has been on this medication since day one, so his kidneys never had to work to remove the fluid. They stopped giving him this a few days ago and since then the fluid came back...which was making it hard for him to breathe well which put a hault to him feeding from the bottle. He was just getting way to tired. We believe that it is slowly starting to fix itself because for the first time in about 3 days he was wanting to feed from the bottle today and took his full feed. Crossing fingers it stays this way! This set back was so discouraging for us because for days before he was doing so well with drinking his full feed from the bottle and they really thought he would be home before this weekend. It wont be happening now :( He is pacing himself great now...which is good cause that was his problem about a week ago.

Other than that he is just getting bigger as the days go by...he is about 6lbs 10oz now. We are also in the process of trying to move him back to the hospital where he was born. They only have 1 baby there vs the 100 babies at Millers NICU, so he would get the one on one care he needs right now to come home. His nurses now are one to three babies. We can't be there 24/7 for our baby so we need to make sure that he is getting held and cuddled like we would...when a nurse has two other babies to take care of he just does not get that cuddling. Just waiting for the insurance to say yes or no...we will see. The other hospital is alot closer to Jon's work so it would be so much easier for him to go to see him. All I know is we CAN NOT WAIT for us to get that call that he is going to be discharged! His parents need him home but most importantly his big brother needs to meet him!


Here are a few pictures of him from last night...

Look at those cheeks and that crazy hair. I tried to brush it to the side but it just wanted to stand up :)