March of Dimes

Caden and I (and possibly Dan) will be walking in the March of Dimes walk on 4/14/12. We would love to have you join our team and/or support our walk! Unfortunately this is also the Saturday of the MCC sale, but we plan to do both (this may be a bit ambitious for a 3 month old, but we'll see)!

www.marchforbabies.org/michelleackland

Home sweet home....depot!

It's true! We spent last weekend (Feb. 25-26) packing up and preparing to leave the hospital. The official orders were made Monday morning, and we left that afternoon. The only slight hiccup came when his nurse told us that insurance wasn't approving his medicine (caffeine to keep him from sleeping too deeply and forgetting to breath), and that a 20 day supply would cost us over $1600! Luckily, after a phone call to the insurance company, we only had to pay a $10 copay.

The doctors wanted us to break up the trip so Caden wouldn't have to spend 16 hours straight in a car. We spent a couple nights in Chicago visiting family, a couple nights in KC visiting friends, and a couple nights in Grafton, NE visiting more family before arriving home early this morning (Sunday the 4th). Caden did very well in the car, and has been eating even more than he was in the hospital. He wakes up to eat every 2-4 hours, and spends the rest of his time sleeping.

We know many of you would like to see him (and we would like to show him off), but we need a couple days to get settled in before we accept company. We are still planning to have an open house, and will work on setting a date for that ASAP!

A couple pics.

I can't find my toes, did you eat them?

This sign on our bathroom mirror makes me giggle every time I read it!
I graduated from my preemie clothes! Check out my NEWBORN sleeper!

Home Depot?

We figured it was time for another update since many of you have been asking for one!  The past few days the doctors have been talking about letting Caden go to "Home Depot".  This is NICU talk for letting the baby go home.  They don't say that because when they do the babies tend to act up and stay in the NICU longer.  :)

They are estimating it should be within the next week, but could be as early as Friday.  We are breaking the trip up into several days and stopping to see friends and family along the way, which has been the recommendation of our doctors.  He can't handle more than a few hours sitting in a car seat and we are 16 hours from home...depot.

He is about 18 and 3/4 inches long and weighs about 5lbs, 12oz.  He is taking over 75% of his feeds and even went 24 hours once taking all of his feeds.  Once he is taking 100% of his feeds consistently, he can leave.

We continue to enjoy Ann Arbor with recent stops at a local ice cream dairy store, a greasy burger joint that was featured on Food Network, and a reptile museum.  We've even been into Detroit twice - Michelle got her hair cut and colored for the first time since getting pregnant.

The resources that are being provided to us by the hospital continue to amaze us - we are learning an incredible amount of information, more than what would have been available to us back home.  This hospital is truly one of the best in the world.  We have met with lactation consultants, occupational therapists to assist with bottle feeding, infant massage, etc, etc, etc.  They have all given us contact information so that we can contact them once we get back to Valley Center if we have any further questions.

We met with a doctor to discuss test results on Braxton and Tarson.  They were able to determine that none of their health issues were genetic and were rather just random and a cause of a high risk multiples pregnancy.  The risk of a baby having the same health issues in future pregnancies would be roughly 2-3%.  This was very encouraging news.

We look forward to seeing friends and family in the next few days and finally getting back to home depot.  We are planning some sort of open house/come see our baby after we return and have a few days to ourselves to settle into a routine and make sure he adjusts well to life outside the NICU.  We will post that information to the blog and facebook.

As always, a big thank you to everyone for all that you have done for us along the way.

The many faces of Caden.

Just for fun!

Nap time with Daddy!

Awake after eating.

One of our nieces LOVES watching the last video we posted of Caden getting a bath. Since that video is so "worn out," we decided to add a new one.

5 pounds!

You read that correctly...Caden has reached 5 pounds and is 18 1/4 inches long!!! He begins most meals with a bottle, and finishes about half of each meal before tuckering out (he gets the rest of his meal through a tube). He is having fewer and fewer Bradys, and self recovers from MOST of the ones he does have.

Dan and I are still staying at RonnieMac, and continue to find great restaurants in and around Ann Arbor. We are looking forward to coming home soon (cross your fingers for late February)!

Dan and I had a great time at Build-A-Bear!

Our little towhead.