Sister sister

Today Zoe came home after staying with Grammy and Papa for 10 weeks! She didn't notice that I had Emma at first, but once she noticed something was different she really had to check it out! All in all Zoe did really well, and has seemed to accept her baby sister. Emma on the other hand really didn't notice anything, even when Zoe was licking or sniffing her!

This is Zoe and Emma's first meeting ever. Zoe was really not sure what this little pink thing that I was holding was!



Do you have a bottle for me, Mom?


Kisses!


Me and my girls.


What have you got there, Papa?


Hi sister!


Aw, let's snuggle together now. I like you, we can keep you.

Weight gain

Today we went back to the hospital to meet with a nutritionist. She was very impressed with Emma's growth! Her weight is now 6 pounds, 13.5 ounces!

They also measured her height and recorded 19 inches even. That is probably more accurate than the doctor last week (19.75), because at the hospital they use a ruler device like what you measure your feet with at the shoe store! At the doctor's office they simply laid her on the table and made marks on the paper beneath her.

They said they expected her to gain 20-40 grams per day, and she has gained an average of 48 grams per day! She eats whatever she wants whenever she wants. She is doing so well. We go back in two weeks again to re-check everything!

Day out

Today was mom and Emma's first big adventure out together! We just made a quick trip to Babies R Us. I wanted to have a dry run at taking her out in the car, since we have to run up to the hospital tomorrow!

Believe me - I haven't driven that cautiously since my driver's license examination! Emma did fine and slept the whole time!

Just look how cute she is in her big girl clothes. These are newborn size and still a little big on her! Some of the pictures made me think of movies, as though she were auditioning...

Risky Business!

Footloose!

Baby Rocky?

Okay, as you can see I have way too much fun with my daughter! Is there any other way to be?!

Toyland, joyland!

Today I just wanted to bring out some of Emma's toys to see how she'd react!

This is Emma's first dolly - Sweet Pea. See how she comes in her own pea pod?!



This is Juniper Giraffe, he has all sorts of activities on him for Emma to play with!


I was glad to see Emma reach out for him!

Big girls do cry!

We have been asked if our little girl actually cries. She does! Today she cried after her bath for some reason. Perhaps she didn't want to get out of the tub?! I was able to snap a picture of it to share:


She was much happier in her jammies after her bath.




Here she is with Kissy Bear. You squeeze his paw and he makes kissing noises! She likes to stare at him on her changing table. Aw, best friends!!


Emma has been on an eating rampage today, eating practically every two hours! It's hard to keep up with her. Gotta run!

Big eater

Sunday was another good day for us here at home! I don't have much to report, other than Emma is showing us that she is a growing girl!

She currently eats about 2 ounces every 3 hours. Today she ate her 2 ounces, and when we tried to put her back to bed she pitched a fit. She kept sticking her tongue out, so we tried feeding her more and she ate another whole ounce within an hour after eating those two ounces! The good part about that is that she just slept almost four hours in between, so she was good and full :)

On Thursday we go back to the hospital to meet with the NICU nutritionist. She will advise us how much Emma should be eating based on her growth, and how to continue fortifying her food. It will be good to get an idea if we're on the right path!

She is now getting her bottle from daddy, so hopefully she'll sleep a good chunk of time until the next feeding! I actually set my alarm to make sure she doesn't go over four hours at night. Hopefully soon we won't have to make sure she eats every certain amount of hours!

A full week

It has been one week since we brought Emma home! Things are going very well, we've really enjoyed our time at home with her.

Today we went out to one store, just to have a change of scenery. It was a quick trip, but it felt good to get out!

Emma continues to eat really good. She definitely lets us know when she is hungry! Today I was about to feed her, and Ed bent down to give her a kiss on her cheek. She greeted Ed with an open mouth and proceeded to suck on his nose! It was so funny! She has also tried sucking on his neck before too :)

Here she is today in her ultra comfy pajamas!



Anyway, that's about it from the Ross house today!

Friday

Happy Friday! Well, even though we were awake very early this morning, we resisted all of the early bird sales.

We just had a nice visit with my Uncle Eric, Aunt Kelly and cousins Sandra and Jesse from Seattle today. They were in town for Thanksgiving and we're so glad they came over! Emma got extra love and she was very cozy while they held her!

Here's Emma in her rocking chair/seat (which naturally is way big for her!):


What's so funny?!


We had another good day with our Emma girl! Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend still!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope that everyone had a wonderful day today. Ours was very special having Emma home with us! It was nice not to have to go out anywhere (especially the hospital!) and we have had a very relaxing day.

We decided to break out the aquarium play mat to see how Emma might react to it. I'm sure she will be a big fan of swimming - it runs in the family!


She didn't reach up and play with the toys yet, but we'll keep giving her time to play on it. You can also roll up one end for tummy play. Even at her size we're supposed to have tummy time with her each day!


Today we are very thankful for our healthy, beautiful baby girl!

Wednesday's trip to the doctor!

Emma had her first doctor appointment outside of the NICU today! She did very well but they didn't do anything drastic like give her shots or anything today. We go back in two weeks and she'll get her two month immunizations then. I don't imagine she'll be too happy about that! However, she needs those vaccines before we can take her around in public, which of course we are so excited to do!

She got weighed and guess what, she is at 6 pounds even! Wow! Her length is at 19 and 3/4 inches. What a big girl! (Though I wouldn't be too surprised if there is a discrepancy between their measurements and the hospital's measurements from Saturday!)

When she was on the scale in the hallway, a couple of ladies passed by. They stopped and cooed at her and said "How old is she?" I said two months! They said "She's small!" I said "She's premature!" Then they were impressed at her size :)

Here she is as snug as a bug in a rug on the way to the doctor... (see the bugs on the blanket?!)


Emma stayed awake the whole time we were at the doctor. She was right back to sleep when we got home!



She'll be waking up hungry anytime now, so I'd better run. Have I mentioned just how EXTREMELY excited we are to have her home for Thanksgiving tomorrow?!

Happy Wednesday everyone!
Jacki

Tuesday snoozeday

Just had to share this cute snoozing picture that I took of Emma on Tuesday. She was sound asleep even though the sunshine was pouring into her room! We'll have to get a curtain to put over the blinds as the sun hits that side of the house all day long. I didn't think we'd have that problem in November!

Monday bath

Monday has gone pretty smooth here at the Ross house! Emma has done her job of eating and sleeping all day long.

Emma was definitely in need of a bath, so that's what we just did. I really like this baby bath tub much better than the little hospital tub. This has a hammock that she can kick back in while we wash her! We tried to be quick so she wouldn't get cold too quickly.


After the bath. She appears to be thinking: "Are you serious?!"


Happy clean baby!!

Sunday report

All is well on the home front!

Emma has done great with her feeding and sleeping schedule. She had one four-hour sleep run last night, but otherwise since we've had her home she's been up every three hours and has taken a full feeding except once! She has exceeded her minimum requirement of 12 ounces in a 24-hour period.

Of course as she grows she will get more and more, but it's a place to start for now. She has a doctor visit on Wednesday to see how much weight she has gained since we've had her home!

Oh yeah, and we actually got to hear her cry like she meant it for the first time! It was still very sweet and not much louder than her quiet whimper, but we know what she is capable of....

Ed made a Starbucks run a while ago and it was a nice treat! I think we both will try to catch a nap this afternoon. We are tired but not dragging (yet), so we feel pretty good about our first full night/day as parents!

Stat update

I almost forgot to include her most recent stats from today!

Weight: 5 pounds, 10 ounces.

Length: 18.6 inches!!

Home sweet home!

We are home!! What a great feeling! Everything is going good so far. As soon as we got home we needed to change and feed Emma and she did well. Now we just need to settle into a routine. Here are a handful of pictures from today!

We had to laugh when first getting her dressed to go home today. She looked like a little old man with her pants pulled all the way up to her chest!!


Look at me in my going home outfit. Aren't I so pretty?!


Emma in her car seat, all ready to go home!


After 8 weeks and 2 days in the NICU, we are all ready to be at home together as a family!


Here she is in the car. She didn't cry or whimper one time, and she slept the whole ride! Fortunately it stopped raining when we left the hospital and drove home, so we didn't have to drive in pouring rain. The sun was shining brightly!


Emma looks so tiny in her crib! Right now we are listening to her on the monitor, and I can tell you that we aren't going to sleep too good tonight as we'll jump at every peep she makes!

So, we are going to eat dinner right now in anticipation of Emma's next feeding, so we can be ready for her! We'll let you know tomorrow how this evening goes :)

Saturday funny

Just a quick funny story to share before we head up to the hospital!

Emma's doctor just called and said "Emma cannot come home with you today." I figured she was joking, so I didn't say anything and she quickly responded "Because she's coming home with ME!"

I said that's great, now we have a babysitter! She said her four other kids would just love Emma and help take care of her!

In the end she agreed to split time with us :)

Tigard Homecoming Dance - this Saturday!!

Yes, that means what you probably think it means - Emma is scheduled to come home with us tomorrow!!

The doctor today said that everything looked great and that she was going to dictate the discharge discertation (say that 10 times fast!). So long as the doctor tomorrow (a different one, but she's also very familiar with Emma) clears her to go home, we will be bringing that little babe home with us on Saturday afternoon!

Because Emma has been sleeping a whole 4 hours in between her ad lib feedings, the doctor said that during the day we need to go back to waking her up every 3 hours to make sure she gets enough food during the day. At night we are allowed to let her go 4 hours if she makes it that long!

We are very excited that this is probably the last time we have to leave her at the hospital like this!


Anyway, that's the big news of the day! Now we're off to get that one last good night's sleep for a while!

Big eatin' day!

Today Emma is 8 weeks (37 weeks) old!!

Wow, today was just a whirlwind of excitement! When I arrived this morning the nurse told me that Emma took 60 mL (2 ounces!) at her 8:00 feeding. She also said that she decided to remove the feeding tube!

Yesterday I asked the doctor about when Emma might be put on the ad lib feeding schedule? (Ad lib is they let the baby wake up over a 2 to 4 hour period when they are hungry.) She told me that the nurses were the experts at deciding when the babies are ready for that! So, that was another thing the nurse decided this morning. She said Emma is 37 weeks now and she should be ready to do ad lib!

So, I was just going to be there and wait for her to show me a sign that she was awake. Crying, eyes wide open, anything! If she didn't wake up before 4 hours, I would have to wake her up and feed her. Guess who slept the whole time?! So at her next feeding Emma took another 2 ounces!

Ed arrived in the afternoon, and once again we had to wake Emma up! She was slow to eat and it took about an hour to just about finish her bottle. We are pleased with this schedule though, because we had been thinking that Emma was so tired each 3 hours that we woke her up!



Look ma, no feeding tube! This was during her sleepy phase this afternoon. It can be a game to get her to open wide and put her tongue down!


ANYWAY, the big news is that the doctor sat down with me today and said that it's very likely that Emma will be home by Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's so exciting!

Tomorrow she will be given a Synagis vaccine for RSV (respiratory syncytial virus, a very serious viral respiratory infection). She might be a bit fussy because of that, so we'll see how her feedings go tomorrow. On Friday or Saturday she will be given the "car seat challenge," and then presuming everything is going smooth we will get to take her home with us!

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for Emma and her progress. She is such a blessing to us already!

Five and a half pounds!

Emma is 5 pounds, 8 ounces! Can you believe that?! Boy oh boy, what a big girl.

Even though Emma was pretty tired today, I gave her a bottle at the 11:00 and 2:00 feedings. She steadily took over 3/4 of her bottle at each feeding. I felt this was a pretty good success because she was not fully awake at either time! Plus, I think at the 2:00 feeding that she wasn't totally hungry either. As she gets better at her feedings they will put her on an "ad lib" schedule, where they let her tell them over a 2 to 4 hour period when she wants to eat!

Tomorrow I might try to really nudge her along and give her a bottle at three back-to-back-to-back feedings! That's what she'll have to do before we can bring her home, so we need to see if she is capable of it yet.

One of Emma's doctors told us on Sunday that she wanted Ed and I to get a pertussis (whooping cough) vaccination as well as a flu shot before Emma comes home. We wish she would have mentioned that a few weeks ago! Pertussis is passed along by adults and teens, so it's important to protect Emma's immune system from that possibility.

Well, fortunately today we both were able to see our doctors and get the two shots. Plus, the pertussis shot is paired with a tetanus shot, so we are free to step on rusty nails for another 10 years! (So if either of our fathers need help with pallets, we are good to go!) So, we each will have a couple of sore arms tomorrow, but we're no more worse for the wear. Emma is worth it!

Emma's day at the spa

Emma is now 17.5 inches in length! I can't wait to see what her weight and length are on her due date of December 6th.

It was time for a bath today. As usual Emma really enjoyed it! She is very relaxed and she just kicks back and enjoys the warm water. Even with a washcloth on the bottom of the tub she was super slippery! Thank goodness we have a baby bathtub with a seat at home to help hold her up.

I like to tuck her under my arm like a football!


Lot of warm blankets after the bath to keep her warm!


Check out her wild hair! She gets that from Daddy!




Ah, nice and sleepy now. Even though she was very tired at the feeding following her bath, she took her whole bottle for daddy! We took this as a very good sign of her maturing.


Her outfit here says "Precious." INDEED!