The past few months

Where to start...

After a beautiful Seattle summer spent walking, hiking, gardening and generally just enjoying unusually high temperatures (the days where the temperature was over 100 degrees not included), we moved towards a warm, still dry September. We began harvesting lots of tomatos, zucchini, jalepenos (over 60!) and even a few small pumpkins. We also took a trip to the Oregon coast with friends where we walked on the beach, ate lots of candy and did not eat the hot dogs that were covered with sand. Note for future trips - beach fires are not good for cooking when the winds are strong. We bought Seahawks season tickets and tickets to go see Wicked which was in town for a few weeks.

We had plans for pretty much every weekend from Labor Day until Halloween (my due date) - those plans changed quickly on September 21. On September 21st, despite no signs of premature labor, my water broke. I was 6 weeks early. We went to the hospital where they tried to put me on bed rest, in the hopes that Green Bean could have a few more weeks to grow, but he was having none of it. Around 6:30pm, the OB decided labor wasn't going to wait and by 3 am on September 22, Daniel was born.

At 5lbs, 6oz and 18.5" long, he was considered a "big" preemie. Unfortunately since we hadn't had any indication he was going to come early, I hadn't received any steroid shots to help his lung development. He was sent to the NICU immediately and was on respiratory assistance (CPAP) for three days. On the fourth day, he was moved from the NICU to the Special Care Unit as he was considered healthy and just needed extra care to grow a bit more before leaving the hospital. He then ended up needing some time in the baby tanning bed (i.e. phototherapy for jaundice) and time to get better at eating full feeds and outgrow his apnea of prematurity. We think he liked to set his monitors off for extra attention as he would have the occasional bradycardia and/or desat incident every so often.

Despite the bradycardia, Daniel was considered a feeder/grower. He wasn't so sure about the feeding part. When the doctor moved him from a set feeding schedule to on demand feeding, the nurse updated his care board to say "I eat on demand." Since he immediately began to refuse food, we joked that he "Demanded not to eat." After a few days he started eating well again and grow he did. At one month he was 7lbs, 13oz and 21" long. We left the hospital shortly after that and he really took off. At his due date, he had made it all the way up to 9lbs!

Daniel has been at home for just over 3 weeks now and we're enjoying him tremendously. He's starting to smile occasionally and rolled from tummy to back for the first time two weeks after his due date. We have been very fortunate to have been able to welcome many visitors in the past few weeks. Kim's mom, came out the day after Daniel came home and spent a week visiting and helping. Mike's parents came out the following weekend and spent five days in Seattle. We were even able to get up to Whitbey Island during their stay to visit Mike's great Aunt and Uncle. Kim's dad came the following weekend and spent five days here as well. Hopefully Kim's stepmother will be able to join him on the next visit.