Stats

Charlotte saw the pediatrician yesterday.  She is 8 pounds, 6 ounces and 20 3/4 inches already!  While I was on bedrest in the hospital, they kept saying that every day in the womb is worth two in the NICU.  That makes me wonder if she would have grown even bigger if she was born full term, which is this week.

Just Looking Around

Today

Is Charlotte's due date and also the day Mike went back to work.

Bubbe and Charlotte

Bubbe going in for a kiss.

Poopsmith

Tomorrow I go back to work after taking two weeks off.  I am not looking forward to pile of paperwork that awaits me, but I do miss many of my co-workers and (almost) all the students I work with.  Of course I am pretty sure I will miss Charlotte, Emily, and late morning naps even more.

And so while I go back to Farnsworth to resume my old job, I am pretty sure there is a job here that will always be waiting for me at night.  I realized yesterday, as I was washing Charlotte's cloth diapers, I am responsible for everyone's poop in the household except Emily's.  I tend to the cat boxes, walk the dog, and now am Charlotte's poopsmith.

By the way, the Poopsmith is a character from Homestarrunner.

Mike Nawrocki: Speech Language Pathologist by day, Poopsmith by night.

Meeting of the Minds

Nacho presently weighs three time as much as Charlotte.  Emily was worried that he would smother her.  But the gentle giant really only smothers her with curiosity.   He always keeps a respectful distance and looks to me first before approaching her.  And if he does get too close for comfort, Pancho comes rushing in to keep Nacho atbay.

Auntie

Jess holds her niece

I've been telling my sister for years how much fun it is to be an auntie and now she gets to see for herself.  Charlotte is a very lucky little girl.

Conversation with Emily #891233

Today while feeding Charlotte, she kept on eating and eating and eating.  I figured she'd be done so I'd put her down, but then she'd keep fussing.  Finally after giving her yet another of pumped milk, she fell asleep three swallows into the bottle.

 So I said "Charlotte it looks like your eyes are bigger than your stomach."

To which Emily responded, "Actually, they probably are."

And she is right.  Newborn's bellies are the size of a marble.  Crazy.  Since Charlotte's full-term due date is still a a week away, her eyes are indeed bigger than her stomach.

So in the literal sense I was correct.  But in the figurative sense, I couldn't have been more wrong.  After sleeping for about another minute, Charlotte perked up and drank/ate another 30 mL of milk out of the bottle.  You go girl.

Sisters

One of the best things about being pregnant was that I got to share the whole thing with my sister.  She was pregnant with twins and our due dates were 3 weeks apart.  When we both found out we were having girls, I was so excited!  We grew up with a close clan of female cousins, and I always imagined the same for my own kids.  Since she had two kids already, I could ask her all my stupid pregnancy questions and we could share protein shake recipes and pregnancy complaints. 

Of course, we also had some fun photos together.

Me 24 weeks, Jess 27 weeks

Me 29 weeks, Jess 32 weeks

At first, my mom was worried we would have our babies on the same day at different hospitals.  That seemed completely ridiculous!  She was having twins and would probably have them early so the births would be over a month apart.  I would be able to help her out with her newborns weeks before I had my baby.  Then, I was on bedrest and my sister, pregnant with twins, was coming over to make me lunch.  Nobody expected her to make to full term with twins and that I would deliver >6 weeks early .  We gave birth a mere 3 days apart!  Now we can barely find time to talk on the phone with eachother, but once these baby girls are a little older they are going to have so much fun growing up together and making trouble.  Here are their first fun photos together.

Bailey, Charlotte, and Netta.

Charlotte's First Walk*

*and Emily's first walk since early August.

Now that we all live under one roof, I am on paternity leave, and we found the cord to upload our photos from the digital camera, I have the time and means to get caught up with the blog.  As a result, I just cranked out five posts to get caught up with news from the last week.  Also, Emily posted a picture this morning.  So that's six posts on one day.  Sorry for the onslaught of posts.  I guess when blogging, I pace myself the same way Charlotte does when feeding off the bottle.  Glug glug glug glug glug glug.  Post post post...

We made it the river and back.  Good for a one mile round trip.  Charlotte stayed warm.  Emily stayed energetic.  And Pancho stayed patient.  Right after this picture, we bumped into one of Emily's co-worker, who is a pediatrician.  He had no concerns.

Three of my favorite living beings (Pancho, Charlotte, and Emily--not that guy on a bike although I'm sure he's good people too).   Doesn't Emily look great?  In a week winter will make it's debut so we are going to get out with Charlotte as much as we can this week.

Sleeping Beauties

I love how Charlotte ALWAYS sleeps with her arms in a "stick 'em up!" position.  I also love that Emily is no longer ALWAYS wearing this pink hoodie.  Emily said on Tuesday when Charlotte was still in the NICU, "I have to wear this hoodie everyday, otherwise Charlotte won't know who I am."

A Sort of Homecoming

First nap at home.  The close viewer will note the mess on the floor suggesting we weren't quite done getting Charlotte's room in order.  But I am just happy to see Charlotte free of tubes and leads.

Check out the great paint job Emily's cousins and aunts did, and the ceiling painted by Zach.

Charlotte's Last Day in the NICU

The day Charlotte went home was also the day they moved the NICU from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor.  Here are some pictures of her new digs and her last hour before we brought her home.

Emily reviewing Charlotte's discharge report.

Our favorite nurse Dee Dee made this sign.  But we never got a picture of her, just the sign she made.  Dee Dee was the nurse who gave the specific directions to me on how to pace Charlotte's feeding.  It was those directions that helped Charlotte turn the corner with her feedings and finally get to go home with us.

Hurry up and finish that bottle Charlotte so we can go home!

One final NICU family portrait.

Locked and loaded and ready to go home.  Our friend Julie Cannon knitted this hat for Charlotte.  Those aren't her real ears.

Happy um Halloween... in a November sort of way

 

 

 

Fall hat knitted by our friend, and Emily's childhood friend, Joanna.

One of Charlotte's NICU nurses made this sign for Charlotte.  This was as close as we came to celebrating Halloween this year. 

Nappers

Look But Don't Touch

Ben came over to visit Charlotte before he went to work.  Charlotte's immune system needs a little time before she can be handled by anyone besides me and Emily.  We take Charlotte to her first pediatrician's appointment tomorrow and will get some more clarity about how social Charlotte can be.  All early answers point to a reclusive winter for the three of us.

So it was nice to see Ben.  He brought us some honeycrisps and his camera.  Here are the fruits of his labor.

Charlotte is now strong enough that we probably don't need to hold her up with one hand anymore, but it's hard not to.

Charlotte's present feeding pattern is to sleep for three hours, and then eat and nap on and off for two hours.  Ben showed up during a 20 minute power nap during one of her feeding times.  She comes by it honestly: no one has a bigger reputation for taking longer to eat than her father.

 

 

At Last

We are finally home with Charlotte.  As I type this Emily is napping with her, if you define napping as getting mad at the cats every two minutes for snooping around Charlotte.

I am off to Gladys' house to get Pancho and introduce him to the newest member of the zoo crew.  Gladys is the dog of our friend Doug and Erin, so technically it's their house.  So there is a lot of good information on how to bring a baby into the house for the first time when you have a dog, but not a whole lot to go on in terms of bringing the dog into the house when the baby got their first.  I have a plan though.

I wonder whose world will be rocked more: Pancho's or Charlotte's?



Or ours?

Go To Your Room

A few people have asked what life in the NICU is like.  It's a fair question because only five people are allowed access to Charlotte, aside from her nurses and doctors.  Those five people would be me and Emily and then we are allowed to put four people on a list who can also come into the NICU with us.  These four people are allowed to look, but can't touch.  We put Emily's mom and her sister Jessica, and Jessica's husband, Ben, on the list.

So we have a fourth name we can add to the list.  I am willing to sell that vacancy to the highest bidder.  But be forewarned, I've got this thing and it's effing golden.  And I'm not giving it up for effing nothing.

So what is Charlotte's world like?  In a word, limited.  She spent the first three days of her life on the south side of the NICU where the most fragile kids stay, and then when she moved off the CPAP tubes in her mouth, she graduated to the north side of the NICU.

She gets out of her crib for feedings, to be bathed once or twice a week, and to be weighed.  Otherwise, she hangs out in her crib.  This may not sound like much, but she is certainly a lot more active than her age-matched, in utero peers.  So here is a tour of Charlotte's world.

This is the room Emily and I stay in in between feedings.  Emily stayed here every night until a few days ago.

How we typically pass the time: surfing the web, reading, watching TV, talking to visitors.

To the left is the nursing station and to the right is a hallway leading to the infamous room 211 where Emily stayed during her bedrest.  That door is the secured entrance to the NICU, where Charlotte lives.  We can bring her up to the window for people to look at her.

Charlotte's "room."  Curtains for walls, sterile bin for a crib, and a oxygen saturation monitor for an entertainment center.

Charlotte's kitchen.  Whatever milk she doesn't take from a bottle or nursing is fed to her through an NG tube via this giant syringe.  The machine it is hooked up to delivers the milk at a set pace.

A room with a view.  From our vantage point we can see Charlotte's neighbors, depending on whose walls are up or down.  You get to know a lot about the parents around you without ever talking to them, but just by listening to them talk to everyone else.

Our living room.

Not a perfect home, and not what we imagined, but it's worth it.

Double Take

3 weeks old

ultrasound picture 29 weeks