Hannah Kate -Two Months

Baby girl has grown so much in the past month. While my parents were here, we attempted to take a few pictures for size comparison. I could kick myself for not doing this at one month, but we had literally just brought her home and it just wasn't at the top of my list (working on the mommy guilt).

 Timber!

This month you:

• Survived two eye exams. It is absolute torture for Mama to watch so I stay in the lobby and let Daddy be the strong one. They are monitoring the growth of the blood vessels in your eyes and hopefully they will be over soon!
• You are up to 7 lbs! That may not sound like much but it is more than double your birth weight. The doctor was amazed.
• You are still wearing preemie clothes and diapers.
• You are quite the grunter. It is crazy loud and you even do it in your sleep.
• You have smiled a few times intentionally. Melts my heart every time.
• You have an umbilical hernia. This scared Mama at first but the doctor says it should heal by the time you are two. 
• Pudginess is starting to show up on your little body. Sweet little fat rolls look good on you!
• The playmat is also a favorite. You don't do much on it, but like to look around.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a very merry Christmas!

 

 (Her expression cracks me up)

I can't believe it's already Christmas Eve!

Hope Realized

Today I put Hannah Kate in an outfit I bought for her when I was pregnant. During HK's pregnancy my emotions oscillated from panicking about needing to buy things because it proved that I thought she would come home to worrying about having anything for her because they would just be boxed up with Ethan's things anyway. Buying this outfit was a way for me to hope. I had a hard time picturing her in it, but seeing it laying out in the guest bedroom was a reminder that she was coming. I want to remember the feeling I had yesterday when I put it on her. It's still too big but that doesn't matter. She's here. A tangible symbol of hope and His grace to me.

Pictures, pictures, pictures

I have a bad habit. I LOVE to take pictures but I am horrible about printing them! I share them on here and on facebook but it's rare that they make it beyond the internet or the picture folder on my computer. Since the birth of Hannah Kate, I've tried to be more intentional about printing pictures. More than once I was asked to see a picture and I didn't have one printed. I finally decided to try out shutterfly because they had a promotion for 50 free prints. I was impressed at how easy it was to use, and it was nice to have them shipped to the house since we can't take HK out.

After I got them and liked to quality, I looked at the christmas cards and baby announcements. I have been dreaming about sending out cards for awhile and its exciting to be at this point! Now to choose which ones I like the best...

I really like almost all their baby girl announcements, including this one and this one.  I have draft projects saved of a few until I decide. I've also peeked at the first birthday cards they have. Hopefully I can talk her Daddy into them next year :). And if we get our act together I'd love to have a picture taken to use on our Christmas card. This one catches my eye right now, but I'm sure I'll build a few before I decide.

And for you viewing pleasure, I'll leave you with outtakes from our first Christmas picture attempt.

Your welcome. I don't think the dogs will make the cut :)

Turkey day

Our Thanksgiving was quiet but wonderful with Hannah Kate home. It was nice to enjoy Thanksgiving with my Mom and Dad because we haven't celebrated it with family since we got married (I miss that). One of the things I was excited about was putting HK in a holiday outfit since we couldn't do that at the hospital. The only thing I'd found was newborn so it was way too big but it was still cute.

Don't ask me why, but I really wanted a picture of her with the turkey. It's crazy how much bigger than her it is (4 lbs 6 oz compared to 13 lbs), though you can't tell as well because she wrapped in two blankets. Bri deep fried a turkey and it was yummy. My parents have never had one before so it was nice to share a tradition we picked up in Texas.

This was the star of the show though. You can't get sweet tea up here and we make it at home but it just doesn't taste the same. Mom and Dad brought this up and it's a bit ridiculous how excited Brian and I were to drink it. We don't have a Chickfila up here but during football season we see lots of yummy commercials. 

Overall it was a holiday to be thankful for. We even skyped with our family back in Georgia so they could see Hannah Kate. Hopefully next year we will all be together again but until then we're grateful for technology.

She's Home!

This little miracle came home! It has been a whirlwind with the day she would get to leave changing several times (such is life with preemies), but we brought her home the day before Thanksgiving.  We were blessed because my parents were already scheduled to drive up that day and were an immense help. She is so little that even some of her preemie clothes didn't fit. Luckily the outfit Mrs. Pat sent up fit so she got to wear something special home. 

She looks so little in her carseat! She was not a fan, but luckily we don't live to far away. 

Daddy bringing her through the front door. It was really windy so we didn't have time for a photo op. I promise she's under the blanket.

So that's it in a nutshell. Since she has been home she's had two doctor's appointments, a head ultrasound, and her first eye exam. If things go well we won't go back for a few weeks. HK has acid reflux so we spend a lot of time trying to minimize how often she gets sick. But, I'm mastering the art of typing one-handed so I should be able to at least post pictures more often :). Thank you for your thoughts and prayers for our little girl! She has truly thrived so far and we feel blessed.

Psalm 126:3  The Lord has done GREAT things for us and we are filled with joy!

Closer to Home

I thought I would have time before now to update but it just hasn't happened. It will happen eventually, I'm just enjoying time with our little girl! I wasn't sure I would ever get to say that so I'm soaking it all up.

The good news is that Hannah Kate was transferred to Ithaca today!!!!  I'd say that is a pretty big two week birthday present :). We started hearing rumors last week that Hannah might be transferred to Ithaca once she reached 1500 grams. This was exciting and stressful at the same time because she would be going from a highly regarded level 4 NICU to a community hospital with a level 2 NICU. We went and saw the NICU yesterday and met with the Neonatologist and felt a lot better. It is very small, but the doctor gave us a very good feeling about their abilities. Well, today she rode on an ambulance with a nurse and a respiratory therapist all the way from Syracuse! We couldn't go with her, but we were able to see her when she got to the hospital. She was wide awake and looking around. They told us that she is now 3 lbs 6 oz (1540 grams) and that they are going to increase her feeding today to 16 ml.

 Trying to suck on her fingers/IV board. 

A shot from above. She is starting to figure out her binky, so hopefully it will make learning the suck/swallow/breathe pattern easier when she starts to feed. We are ready to get rid of  her IV.

We still have a long road ahead. She needs to learn to eat (rather than a feeding tube), maintain her temperature, things like that. We've heard it could be anywhere from her due date (8 more weeks) to around 36 weeks before she can come home. It all depends on how well she does. Regardless, we are happy she is in a good place and that we will get to see her for longer periods of time.

Now that she is in Ithaca we will get to see her after dinner and I can't wait! I can start driving on Monday and then they will get sick of seeing my face :).

Quick Update

Since this is also our family journal, I think I'm going to start posting regular NICU updates, and post-dating the ones that are for earlier days. I will eventually post Hannah's birth story but it will be long. It involves hospitalization, an ambulance ride to a bigger city, preeclampsia, placental abruption, emergent C-section with Daddy on the way, a seizure and a long NICU stay.  To say this has been a crazy and sometimes deja vu experience would be true. The good news is Hannah Kate was born breathing on her own and hasn't had breathing issues so far. She has lots to learn in other areas, but you have to be thankful for the blessings. Here's a picture from yesterday. It was a stressful one mostly because I'm exhausted and hormonal :). But, this little girl melts my heart and I cherish the time she can be out of the isolette.

She's here!!!!!

Hannah Katherine is here!

Her arrival was early (30 weeks) and very eventful. Right now she is doing well and we are so thankful. Details to come...

TEAR study

I know I have mentioned this before, so I thought I would pass along the link for those who are interested in participating. Here is the information from the email I received:

T.E.A.R. Study Launch Phase II!

Call for open participants

Bereaved parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and friends who have experience the death of a child family member!

Please follow the link below to participate in the T.E.A.R. Study!

Or go directly to the main website here!


PLEASE SHARE THIS EMAIL WITH AS MANY OTHERS AS YOU CAN!

Invite your family members and friends to participate too!

Thank you so much!

Drs. Joanne Cacciatore, Cynthia Lietz, Jeffrey Lacasse, Melanie Fox-Kean, John DeFrain,
& PhD Candidate Jane McPherson
for the T.E.A.R. Study Team

Remembering Our Babies

Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. A day for remembering all the precious little ones who are gone too soon.

Ethan McKinley April 28, 2009

Remembering you today sweet boy! Can't wait to see you in Heaven one day!!

Yummy Bread

I finally tried out a bread recipe that I've had bookmarked for awhile. If you like crunchy on the outside and airy, soft on the inside I think you'll like this bread. We were having spaghetti tonight and I think it went perfectly. I like it by itself, but I think it goes well with food that you can soak up too (saucy recipes or soup type recipes). Here's the recipe which does not require a bread machine:


http://steamykitchen.com/168-no-knead-bread-revisited.html


Enjoy!

Trip to Niagara Falls

At the end of August Brian and I took our first overnight trip since we moved to New York. Brian really wanted to go to see Brooks and Dunn since this was their last tour. The concert was on Friday night in "east bumble", so we got a hotel room in Buffalo. Brooks and Dunn put on a great concert, and I was tickled at how many people were there. Let's just say that there are country folk everywhere and some of these folks put Southerners to shame :). I didn't take any pictures because it was dark, but it was fun.

We got back to our hotel very late so we got a later start than we intended on Saturday. We stopped for lunch at Duff's Famous Wings which was really yummy. You can't go to the Buffalo area and at least have buffalo wings once. We started out on the US side of Niagara Falls and enjoyed a walk through the park there and taking pictures along the waterfall. We decided not to ride on Maid of the Mist and I'm kinda glad. We had planned on walking all day so I wouldn't have been happy to be soaked.

The misty water did quite a number on my hair, but I had to include a picture of us together.

 We decided to walk across the footbridge and use our enhanced drivers licenses. Well, a short trip across to the Canadian side to take some pictures of the falls turned into nearly two hours sitting in customs/immigration. We do not have good luck when it comes to getting randomly selected, so keep that in mind if you ever travel with us:).

 The view of the falls was better on the Canadian side because the US side is a park. The Canadian side is really touristy (hotels, casinos, etc.) so when you are looking from the US side you see lots of buildings. The Canadian side did have a beautiful garden on it. It was neat to walk around and Bri even got to play a few hands of cards at the casino.

On Sunday we went back into Canada to visit a charming little town called Niagara on the Lake. I highly recommend visiting it if you are ever in Canada. There were lots of shops with beautiful flowers everywhere. It was a nice area to take in and walk around.

We headed back to Ithaca from there and picked up the pups. It was absolutely wonderful to spend a weekend entirely with Bri away from the distractions of work!

Ah, Sugar

Today was my glucose test. Hopefully I passed. This time was only a finger prick, I was oh so excited!

The end :)

Ultrasound Results

Tuesday was our appointment with the specialist. I didn't want to get into why we had the appointment until it was over and I knew how things were going to go. When we went to our anatomy ultrasound, they saw multiple choroid plexus cysts in baby girl's brain. When we met with the midwife afterward to discuss, one of the things mentioned was trisomy 18. She said the risk was small, but that was all it took for my mind to start turning and I was devastated. The meeting with the specialist was to have a special ultrasound to look for the cysts and other markers and also to meet with a genetic counselor.

Brian and I went to the appointment on Tuesday and I was really nervous. The ultrasound tech was really nice and she commented on how active our little girl is. She took lots and lots of measurements and pictures and told us at the end that baby girl is measuring 2 lbs 1 oz. I know there are margins of error for these measurements, but it made me feel better because at 26 weeks she is already bigger than Ethan was at 29 weeks. Afterward we met with the genetic counselor and she told us that the cysts were gone. Oh sweet relief! She asked a lot of questions about our family histories and we talked about Ethan and the genetic testing we had done on the placenta. Based on all this information she said that the risk that she has trisomy 18 is well less than 1%.

We left the appointment and decided to go celebrate! We haven't had BBQ in over a year so we went to Dinosaur BBQ (our appointment was in Syracuse). It wasn't Salt Lick by a long shot, but it was still tasty. Definitely a nice end to a stressful day!

Now to make it past 29 weeks and beyond. We have weekly appointments now so hopefully we will be able to watch little girl's growth closely. 

Little one is a...

I realized that I never let everyone know the gender!

We found out at our 21 week anatomy scan that little one is a little girl! She was hilarious moving all around during the scan and showing us how flexible she is.

See her legs all the way up at her head? 

The ultrasound tech even let us see her in 3D for a little bit. I usually find those pictures a little freaky looking (just being honest) but in real time it's very cool. Her cord was in the way so that's the funny looking thing you see on the left of her face. Brian and I laughed because there is no doubt who's nose she has :).

We also found out that we needed to have another ultrasound to check on some things. We have an appointment with the specialist on Tuesday and are looking forward to checking on our little one. Hopefully we will get good news and have more pictures to share!

I'm ready

Or at least I think I am :).

This is a big year for the Longs for a variety of reasons. Brian is working hard to keep up with Post doc work and get ready to apply for teaching positions. There are many late nights of proposal writing and searching for universities that are hiring. As ready as I am to know we will be living in a place for a longer period of time, it's also hard to believe we are finally at this point! The changes for us don't stop with jobs though.

Do you know what all these things have in common?

We had a pantry closet full of these things for several months. And I ate them exclusively :). Because our growing little one was making their mama sick. I have never been so thankful for morning/all day sickness in my life!

We found out at the end of April, right before we left to spend Ethan's birthday in Georgia. Knowing didn't diminish the sadness we felt missing Ethan but I do think it gave us hope. We debated over and over when we would tell others. We aren't naive to the things that can go wrong, but we also wanted to enjoy every moment we do have with this new little one. It has been an interesting juxtaposition of emotions and I don't always handle vulnerability and emotions together well. So, please forgive us for waiting until now to share in our news.

9 weeks

11 weeks

21 weeks

 

Our due date is January 4th, and we are currently 22 weeks. We have met with a MFM specialist, and have a plan for how things will be handled differently this time. Growth scans have started every 3-4 weeks and it has been nice to get the extra peeks. Our appointments will start to get closer together starting at 24 weeks and will continue until little one is born.

So now you know why things have been quiet around here lately. I've actually written a few posts and just kept them in draft since I don't want to forget this time in our lives. You may see them popping up periodically as I backtrack. We are happy for the gift of this little one, and ask you to join us in celebrating the gift of today.

Will you join us in praying that we get to bring this little one home?

Day of Hope

Today is a day to remember and acknowledge. 

We are grateful for the time we did have together, and look forward to the day when we meet again.

A visit to the Orchard

Since Brian and I started dating, I have wanted to visit an orchard. Being from Ellijay, Brian has seen enough apples to last a lifetime so he wasn't too excited to go. Yesterday when he got off work he came home and told me to put on some comfy shoes but he wouldn't tell me where we were going. I was so excited when we pulled up to a u-pick orchard! They had three kinds of early apples and peaches. At the end, they even had homemade apple cider doughnuts and they were great too. I've pretty much given up eating apples from the store (I hate the wax and mushy texture) so it has been wonderful to have some at home. I've already had three ;). Brian even said he would be willing to go back so we might make another visit as more apples start to ripen.

Quilt Update

I'm still not done with the quilt I mentioned in a previous post (we've had a lot going on), but I thought I would show you my progress. I'm so happy with the way these blocks look for the amount of effort involved. This pattern is now one of my new faves. Now to decide if I'm going to leave it as is (about a yard by a yard), try to find more fabric and make it bigger, or add a border. Decisions, Decisions...