Let me out!!

I've been trying to write a blog for days now, but I have found myself consumed by feeding, washing, and cuddling, and each spare minute sorting something out in preparation for little man's furniture arrival on Wednesday, or to be honest, just staring at him.

We have all settled in nicely here at home. Phil has returned to work, and we have established another new routine for now. Daddy goes to bed early and gets up for the midnight feed, while mummy does the 3am and 6am ones. Daddy goes off to work and usually mummy and Jensen go back to bed for an hour. I've found if I can get this extra hour in the morning, I'm right for the rest of the day. Having said that, nurse Carmel is visiting tomorrow and the likelihood of returning to four hourly feeds is very high. This would be because we have a little porker in the house (complete with snort and all at the moment). Last week he put on 300 grams, so now weighs 2.61 kgs. He is having to be woken for feeds, so expect he'll do well with fourth hourly on demand.....This also means more sleep, and earlier nights for mummy and daddy!

I've been enjoying being at home and getting my bake on, which most of you all know how much I love doing. I've also been cooking more and got the old slow cooker out. Here's a picture of what I had going in the slow cooker earlier this week.

hehe, isn't he delicious??

Last Sunday, we all went for a little walk. It was a lovely sunny winter's day, and I commented to Phil that it'd be nice if the weather was like this all winter, I'd get out for a walk everyday, searching for my lost fitness, and just enjoy being out in the fresh air, after most of the year hibernating inside a hospital. It has rained everyday since. We've been housebound, as I'm not keen on trudging through the rain, with a pram I'm unfamiliar with and a heavy oxygen tank on my back. By Friday there was a spot of clear in the sky, so we swapped our tanks and headed out the door. This is no easy task as being connected to the pram via the oxygen tube makes manoeuvring quite tricky. I felt nervous, every minute I was out. If someone moved quickly toward or past me, I thought they were going to steal Jensen. I ate my lunch so quickly I gave myself indigestion as I thought if we were still for too long someone would see how cute and little he is and want to touch him. I almost gave myself a nervous breakdown. Clearly more practice is necessary, and the sunny forecast for next week appears to be the perfect time to build my outing confidence. Will keep you posted....

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A week at home

Well it's been week now since we all arrived home and we are all settling in nicely. Mummy and daddy have split shifts in the evening for feed times so we can both manage a reasonable chunk of sleep at some point, which seems to be working well. Apart from one or two evenings where Jensen has had his 'awake alert' session between 3am and 6am, he is sleeping nice and quietly throughout the night.

Little fella has been getting used to his new environment, different smells, and surroundings, carpet, cooking smells, noises. We are sleeping with the hall light on at the moment, as Jensen has never really slept in the dark. He's also always slept in a somewhat noisy environment, and the constant hum of traffic outside our place seems to be satisfying him in that regard.

So our first day out was on Friday for a trip back to the hospital to see Jensen's Paediatrician. He'd like to see him weekly at this point, this I am happy with, particularly for hernia monitoring. Although I'm not too confident getting him in the car with all of his attachments and so on by myself, so I may have to leave myself a whole heap of prep time. Phil and I did pretty well for timing though, and considering it was our first go, we were quite happy with ourselves arriving at the hospital 10 minutes ahead of time. We are seeing Dr Sinn, a Neonatologist, Paediatrician, Paediatric Allergist, and a leader in all things baby. He has undertaken research on car seat safety for premature babies, and was monumental in the reformation of baby formula in Australia. We are more than happy he has agreed to take us on as his patient, particularly as he knows Jensen so well.

After our visit to the baby clinic on Friday we have gone back on to 3 hourly feeds, as little man is not putting on the desired amount of weight. So we are back to 8 feeds and having to set alarms in the night for feeds rather than having a little 2.3kg blue eyed alarm wake us up. We prefer four hourly of course and I believe so does Jensen, but we need to get him fat fast.

This little outing was a bit much for Jensen. He then slept for 12 hours, absolutely zonked, needing to be woken for feeds, bless his little exhausted heart. We've since had a couple of other small outings in the pram, just a short walk, and to the GP today for 4 month immunisations. We've found a new GP for Jensen, one a little closer to us. She came recommended to us and after today's visit I am happy with our choice. They even have a waiting room designated for special babies like Jensen to keep them isolated from other poorly patients, although today was under renovation....

So far Little man seems to enjoy motion. He settles and sleeps quickly in the pram and the car, so we know what we'll be doing should we have a night of unsettledness....grab the keys and out we go! Mum says I was the same, but hopefully we won't be doing too many kilometres in the wee hours.

Speaking of mum, grandma and grandpa James finally had their first special cuddles. I had to do a bag check when they were leaving to make sure they weren't sneaking off with their little grandson in tow. Uncle Brett and Aunty Lishi also had cuddles, which was special. Grandma and grandad Jackson had virtual cuddles via face time on our first night at home, with many many more cuddles for all to come.

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Home sweet home

Today is the day...the day we've been waiting for all along. The day we've waited 125 days for.
This morning we brought our little fella home, right where he belongs, for the very first time.

It was an early start this morning...2am in fact. Little scrap started off with a feed at 10pm and a sleep until 2am, and that was the best part of the night. Another feed at 2am, wide awake at 3am, more food at 4am, then 5, and again at 6am (from what in can recall). Perhaps the stress and lack of routine had affected mummy's supply and little man wasn't getting enough milk. Anyway, Jensen had to have his final measurements done between 3 and 6am so I made good use of this time and wheeled Sir Wide Awake into the nursery at 3am.

18 weeks ago we entered the NICU with a very little man weighing just 633g, length of 30.3 cms, and a head circumference of 21.2cms. Too precious to hold. We leave today, with a not so little man weighing 2.3kgs, length of 40.5cms, and head circumference of 32.5 cms, with him in our arms.

Carmel, one of the discharge nurses followed us home today to do a final check on the oxygen equipment that arrived yesterday. Mummy sat in the back with Jensen, just to see how he was travelling. He kicked up quite the stink getting into the car, but fell asleep upon commencement of movement and was transferred nicely into his little bassinet at home. He has spent the day sleeping and eating, with a few sweeping glances of his new environment in between. I was worried that I might forget we have him here, but needn't have as his little squeaky cry can easily be heard and attended to. It's just so nice having him home here, with us, and Phil and I are enjoying our first night of not having to leave the house after hurriedly scoffing down our dinner, and are looking forward to a lazy morning tomorrow.

Today has been a very long day, we arrived home this morning at around 11am, but it felt like late afternoon. After packing up what seemed a lifetime supply of everything, completing our discharge checklist, doing basic life skills lesson, and dressing little man in his special 'leaving hospital' outfit, we made our way through the NICU to say our goodbyes and give our gifts to the nursing staff. Goodbyes were emotional, with nurses coming out of their pods to bid us a happy farewell, lots of cuddles and teary eyes.

We leave with mixed emotions, not knowing life as a parent outside the hospital walls, leaving the constant support of the nurses and doctors, saying goodbye to the place that saved our son's life, and a place we have called home these past 4 1/2 months. Yet, finally taking our little boy home, where he belongs, something we have wished for since the beginning of time, so excited to be starting our life as a family in our own home, and not a hospital, being full-time parents, not part-time, and just sitting staring, and cuddling our beautiful little 'well enough to come home' man.

I will keep the blog going when I can, I can't promise regularly, but am hoping for once a week/fortnight depending on what's going on with us, and what time I have now we are home. I plan on making the blog into a book after his first birthday. Handing it to him one day for some light reading about his hasty, and trying little start to his life.

I'd like to say thank you to all of our ' supporters' throughout this time. Some that are family, and friends, some that we have known forever, some not so long, and some we have never met. It means the world to know we have so many people who love and care for us, willing us to get through this in one piece and start our new chapter at home together.

We are so very proud of Jensen. The battles he has faced and overcome, his strength, determination, and strong will. We have created such an incredible little boy, and look forward to the rest of our lives together.

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