Zac is a little under the weather today, on a day where we've had all sorts of fun weather outside. We awakened this morning to thunderstorms, something Katy and I are always excited about. Zac, on the other hand, could've cared less. This picture I'm putting up today is about the only time he's been asleep and resting comfortably since very, very early this morning. He's had a bit of an upset tummy and has taken to creating what can only be described as "vomit fountains", or what I like to call "vountains".
Yes, not so pleasant and tough for him. No fever or anything, but just a little bug. He's got to experience these things, though, to build up his immune system and of course it's expected. It's just not enjoyed by either he or his mom and me. :)
I guess there is something we can make of this picture in future years, however. If you look closely, his green hospital pacifier is resting just above his head in this picture. To me, it looks like he could be sporting the haircut sumo wrestlers have. Don't you agree?
Katy took Zac to Dr. Ogden this morning for his 2-month checkup (yes, I know he was just there 2 weeks ago, but they want to keep close tabs on him because he was premature). He would have received his first round of shots, but apparently we need to wait a few weeks because he received his Hepatitis-B shot so recently when he was still in the NICU. I guess they need a certain amount of time between that one and his others. So he'll be going back on April 7th for that and I'm SURE he is very excited about it.
He's been a little out of sorts the past few days, but nothing terribly bad. It seems to us he began acting this way sometime Sunday night. Mostly it seems to be just a mild virus of some sort. He's been spitting up a little bit more here and there and is a bit fussy. His doctor thinks he may just have something mild and we need to maybe feed him smaller amounts at each feeding until he settles back into feeling normal. Other than that, I can report that he measured 21" today and weighed in at 7 lbs, 6 oz. Wow!
We had a busy week this past week and nice Easter weekend. The pics included in today's post are from Saturday, when Claire & Abby went with us to see Katy's mom and dad. The girls came up with their mom Thursday and Claire spent the night with us that night. Not only was she really looking forward to spending time with Zac, but so was Abby. She couldn't wait to get to hold him, so we made certain she could spent quite a bit of time on Saturday feeding and holding him. I told Abby that she is Zac's adoptive sister, just like I had adoptive grandparents when I was a child, and I explained the concept so she'd understand how important she is to him.
Claire takes to Zac very well. She is a natural with children and always ready and willing to help and do anything required. It didn't bother her at all to wake up early when he did on Friday and help with the feeding, and she is very gentle with him. She also wrote him a very cool story as a gift, and we're going to place it in his baby book so it'll be with him always. Abby created a sign for Zac welcoming him home, which we're going to put up in his room along with his other things.
I'd hoped to have a video with the girls in it, but neglected to use that feature while they were here and I'm not sure how I forgot. I did, however, get a number of pictures from the long weekend and they are split between the two slide shows on this page. Hopefully I'll have a new video up later today or tomorrow.
OK, as promised, I am going to begin posting videos so everyone has a chance to see Zac a bit. Now, the quality may not always be perfect, as I'm using either my phone or Katy's camera to do this, but it's all we have at the moment. :) So, on the right side of the page, below the picture of Abby, you'll see a link to our videos. When you click the video preview, it'll open up the video right her on this page. Pretty cool!
Alternately, you can to go YouTube and simply search for "ZTBenedict", which will bring up any videos I've created about Zac. Enjoy!
Zac made it to church for the first time this past Sunday and did very well in the nursery. We have an excellent group of volunteers who assist with all of our children at Heartland Church and it's easy to trust them with your child, to be sure. Next week is Easter, of course, and we have a special outfit already purchased for the event. The next big event after that we'll want something special for is likely Mother's Day, which will also be baby dedication day at church. That will be a nice day and both sets of grandparents get to join us as well. We have to make a trip up to Custer end of April to work on some stuff for the store, and we're bringing back my mom and dad at that time so they can be here for that day.
Pretty soon here I intend to start doing some small videos, captured with my phone or with Katy's camera, so you can see Zac moving around and, if I catch it with my phone, hear him as well. I'm unsure if I'll be able to include it in this page or just have to create a link to a YouTube location, but I'll work it out. Look for that soon and I'll notify everyone when it happens, which should be later today or tomorrow.
On other things, Katy goes back to work the 1st of April. We're unsure if she'll work full-time or part-time that very first week as she gets back in the swing of things, but that's the week it all happens. Obviously since I'm not yet working I'll be staying home to take care of Zac for the time being. I did meet with another recruiting firm today who would like to present me for a position. I'm working on changing up my resume a bit for that spot so they can present it with a slightly different focus than it presently has. God will take care of all of this job stuff in His timing, so I'm not at all concerned or worried about when that will be. Also, there is no need for me to take a job that pays less than I made at Intuit, as we'd end up losing money on the process after paying daycare costs, so I'll wait it out for that right position. I've looked deeply into going into business for myself, doing tech support work and things of that sort, and will continue picking up side jobs along those lines. We made the decision to hold off on me doing that full-time because we still would like to move in the next year or so and to do that, a mortgage will be much tougher to get if I'm self-employed and haven't posted two years of income yet in that venture.
Again, look for a new post soon with information on video links!
OK, so all things being equal, today Katy would have been 37 weeks along, which would have been officially considered full-term. Today is the date at which we are now supposed to draw comparisons for Zac's progress on things as he develops. For example, though he is 6 weeks old today, in developmental terms, he's just a brand new baby. For example, if a regular, full-term baby begins raising their had and chest while on their tummy at three months (I think this is too long, but that's what a developmental chart I found on WebMD mentions), then we are supposed to be patient if Zac doesn't do that until he's about 6 weeks older.
Now, that's likely a bad example because we give Zac tummy time and he can already raise his head very well and almost his chest. In fact, yesterday he turned himself completely over on his back after starting on his tummy, and he moves himself forward on his blanket if we put him on his tummy. So let's use another example from that chart. According to averages, most children sit without support and crawl by 9 months, give or take a few weeks. If Zac takes 10 1/2 or 11 months to do this, that'd be something the doctors say we should expect. Since he's been so aggressive in picking things up to this point, I'll be shocked if he is slower to do anything than a normal child, but it's interesting to kind of watch things and see if he matches up with a slower pace like they said or if he tracks just like any other full-term baby would.
Zac had his first visit to Dr. Ogden yesterday, the same doctor who Katy has had since she was a child. Zac is now 20 inches long and weighs 6 lbs, 12 oz. Wow!
A few new things today. I've added a second slideshow which has pics of Claire, Katy and me here and there and I'll continue to add to that. There are some from our vacation last summer to South Dakota taken at Sylvan Lake in this bunch. If any of you have seen the second National Treasure movie, part of it was shot at that lake (though they attempt to make it look like they're really just on the back side of Mount Rushmore). It's a very pretty place. This slideshow is presently at the bottom of the page because I'm having trouble convincing the system to let me place a second web album over on the right side. Also, if you have a Windows add-on that lets you place widgets on your desktop, you can now add our blog as one of those. That link is on the right side of this page.
Also, today I wanted to add in a picture of the cake from the reception we held at Katy's mom and dad's the week after our wedding in 2006. I added this in because just last night we began eating that cake topper. We were fortunate to get two cake toppers when we married, one for the wedding in South Dakota, which my family ordered for us and one for our reception here in Nebraska. We already went through the one my family gave us, and since this past week was the second anniversary of when we first met, we thought it'd be a good time to pull out the second cake. I can tell you that, in fact, the cakes both tasted just as fresh as they first did. It amazes me that can be the case.
Zac was released from the hospital at noon on Sunday, and we've been re-evaluating our time management skills ever since. Last night, we had dinner with Katy's parents, and were able to take this picture before the battery in Katy's camera died. For those of you unfamiliar, Zac is on the right. In the middle is his cousin Ryan, born three months ago in December, and on the far left is Mandy, Ryan's twin sister. Behind Ryan is Jamie, who is almost 5. Those three are Katy's sister Mickie's children. This isn't the best view of seeing the size difference between the three new babies, but it's a pretty good indicator. While Zac is over 19" long and weighs a bit over 6 pounds at present, Ryan next to him is coming up on 14 pounds and Mandy is somewhere over 10 (I can't recall how much).
Zac had a good day yesterday at home, though was certainly a bit fussy last night. We're noticing some issues with gas and he might have a little bit of constipation, but hopefully that'll clear up soon. It was definitely a sleepless night for me and I don't think Katy slept terribly well earlier, as he was noisy about every hour. One thing we have to remind ourselves is that he's early, so he will hit some milestones about 5 or 6 weeks later than he would normally until he's 6 or 9 months old. So while some 5-week-old children might be a little more likely to sleep slightly longer at night, Zac maybe won't for a few more weeks. However, that said, I firmly believe he'll continue to perform just about everything at the age he's at, rather than the adjusted age they ask us to take into account. So we'll just see!
I don't know if I'll update this daily or a few times a week or what from here on out, but if you want to receive e-mail notice when updates are placed on here, there is a link at the bottom of this page where you can subscribe to the feed. It says the word "Atom" there in the link, so you'll know that's the right one.
Just a fast update for Saturday, here. We arrived to find out Zac is getting to come home tomorrow morning (that's Sunday). Woohoo!
We're very excited, as I'm sure you can imagine. He was circumcised today and they tested him in his car seat. He'll get his RSV shot later today and that's it. We'll be bringing him home tomorrow during the a.m. at some point.
We are getting very close to Zac coming home now. I know I said it the other day to a certain degree, but Friday it became even more apparent as the NICU case manager and our nurse went over everything for when we check out, which looks to be either Monday or Tuesday.
Zac had his hearing test and everything tested out perfectly. He now is also eating most meals with the regular amount of calories. Previously, they had been supplementing his meals with two extra calories. They just want to know he can now maintain his weight on the current calorie intake. Also, he'll continue to take two bottles a day of Similac's NeoSure formula, which has higher calcium and other nutrient content than regular breast milk or formula. This will be until he is six months old. The reason for this is that babies get almost all of their calcium from moms in the last six weeks of gestation. He didn't get that time, so this formula will assure he gets what he needs for strong bones.
When Zac was weighed on Thursday night, he came in at 5 lbs, 14 oz. Friday we measured him, and he's now 19 1/4" long, meaning he has grown about an inch for every pound he's gained! Good thing that doesn't happen throughout the lives of our children or else we'd have very tall kids, though I'm sure that when they hit growth spurts, sometimes they are only gaining about a pound for every inch.
Last steps before Zac comes home are an RSV shot since we're still in season for that, his circumcision, which should happen no later than Monday, and his baby picture, which also should happen no later than Monday. If the baby pic doesn't turn out as good as we'd like, we may just use the one from the post the other day, where he's wearing his "handsome" shirt, for announcements and the like because that picture is just so good.
With digital cable or satellite, we have something called "On Demand", which is pretty much pay-per-view for movies that have just gone to DVD and older ones, even, without having to go to the video store.
Today, Zac has become "on demand", though it's a little bit different. At this point, he has no real interest in purchasing movies through our satellite, but he does have a keen interest in eating. That eating has become, as of today, on demand. This means he gets to eat whenever he's hungry, rather than staying on the schedule up until now which has had him eat every three hours.
Katy and I had some errands to run this morning so we arrived here at 1pm today. Zac had eaten at 9, but they didn't bother trying to wake him up at noon to feed, instead letting him choose when to wake up. However, they won't let him go more than 4 hours at this point. So, he had just woken up and we changed him and now he's feeding from mom. In fact, he was so enthusiastic about it that Katy laughed out loud when he began because he was just so excited. Admittedly, it was pretty funny. This is a bit of a change, too, where he now knows exactly what to do with each kind of feeding.
Only thing he's battling right now is a bit of a possible infection in his right eye. Ever since he had his eye exam last week, that eye has been slightly irritated. He's getting some drainage right now, so it's likely they'll begin giving him some drops for that pretty soon. Meanwhile, we just continue wiping his eyes with a warm cloth, trying to make sure we keep the tear ducts clean. It'll clear up soon, I'm sure. It doesn't appear he had any Brady episodes last night, so that's good. Tonight, or maybe even yet this afternoon, Zac will get measured. We're curious to see if he's grown any since the last time we checked when he was 18 inches. More on that tomorrow, I suppose.
OK! So the biggest news today was that they pulled Zac's feeding tube out because he doesn't need it anymore! He's taking all of his meals through bottle now, so that's one less obstacle to overcome. In celebration of this, I've included a picture of his face, sans tube, for the first time ever!
Now, for the other part. He weighed in at just under 5 lbs, 13 oz tonight. That's more than 2 lbs he has gained since he was born. :) But, here's the other thing. He had another Bradycardia (where his heart rate slows too much) last night, and they want him to be 5 days free of those, typically, before they send him home. They may choose to send him home sooner with us, but possibly still on a heart monitor for a bit. THAT, we don't want. He's been stuck to wires long enough, and we're a little tired of them. :)
OK, so Tuesday's update is a little late. Sorry about that. We're seeing a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel, here. The nurses began preparing us Tuesday for Zac's release. They went over the release procedures, gave us our bag of goodies, and gave Zac his Hepatitis-B shot as well. They talked about putting him in his car seat to make sure his oxygen levels stay correct (in other words, that the seat fits his size right so he's comfortable and able to breathe normally, not all squished up), and about things to watch for when we get him home that we shouldn't be alarmed by. That's good, because when you have essentially 24-hour nurse nannies taking care of your child, you have very little to worry about. You don't want to panic the first time you hear a cough that doesn't sound right when it's actually just a baby being a baby, you know?
We haven't made it up to the hospital just yet today, but when we left last night, he'd taken his previous 8 feedings all by bottle. If he did the same overnight and continues today, his release could be by the end of this week, so we'll see! Last time we checked his weight, so we don't know if he gained again yesterday yet, but I'd expect him to because he's not spitting up much and he's taking in more than he was previously. More updates later today!
Since everyone on both sides of the family is in need of some assistance with their eyes, I wouldn't be surprised if someday Zac needs glasses. His big sister just had an eye exam last week where they noticed some astigmatism and near-sightedness, and that certainly was also expected. Today, Zac had his first eye exam. Apparently, to do this on a baby you have to numb their eyes and then hold their eyelids open while a nurse holds the baby still and they can do the exam. Doesn't take long but wears them out quite a bit. He also had his eyes dilated, so he's a little extra sensitive to light today.
Until his 6pm feeding, it hadn't slowed him down, though, as he'd taken every feeding by bottle. But, he's too tired now to care, so he's fallen asleep and is being fed through his tube at the moment. Katy helped weigh him and give him a tub bath before, which also would've worn him out a bit. He has gained more weight and is up to 5 lbs, 11 oz. That's almost 2 pounds more than he weighed at birth. Surprisingly, that's even less weight than I have likely gained since he was born. :)
OK, so I forgot to put up an update for Saturday, so I'm just doubling up today's update to cover both days. Zac continues to eat at the same pace. Same amount, about the same results. He'll do real well with the bottle for a bit, then all of a sudden not take it completely and have to get the rest via his feeding tube.
This morning was no different. While I had to be at the church at 7 this morning to set up for running sound, Katy stopped in before church to feed Zac. He did fairly well, but then spit up quite a bit. Just like all babies, but until he's a little heavier, they'd rather he not.
To ease the spitting up, they've elevated the head of his bed. Thing is, he's a very active sleeper. Yesterday morning, the nurse came in twice to find he'd wriggled his way down to the bottom of the crib and had his legs sticking out the end. :) Today, they fashioned a kind of hammock, if you will, that lays flat and keeps him from sliding down. Essentially they tie two ends of a blanket to the rails at the top and create this hammock-like structure he can keep his tush in. :) That seems to be working because he's moving about as always, but now not going anywhere.
No other real news to report except that, as we expected, his final blood work (the one for the fatty acids/metabolism) did come back late Friday and it was negative, meaning he passed all of his tests just fine. We assumed it, but it was good to receive confirmation on that front. He's still eating the same amount he has for a week, which is an ounce and a half, every three hours. Doesn't matter a ton that this go way up right now. The only real key is he keeps gaining weight and eventually eats every meal by bottle or by mom. Hopefully that light switch will go on this week because a few days after it happens, he'll finally get to come home.
The sooner he is home, the better. His mom and dad are pretty worn out and drained emotionally at this point and just need this saga to be over. Though we've been prepared for a long timeframe from the start, it doesn't help. When you're driving up here every day to see him, and it feels like the rest of the time he has his own nanny, it just doesn't feel right and it's getting tougher to swallow. Katy appears to be handling it a little better than I am at this point. For me, the combination of this with not being able to find a job for so long has reached kind of a breaking point and emotionally I am exhausted. I'm definitely more irritable lately than I have been, and I know the stress has everything to do with it. If you could keep both Katy and me in your prayers concerning this, we'd really appreciate it.
