Baby Pics

Be prepared for a picture overload! A friend of a friend does photography out of her home, which is perfect for the likes of us who can't take Savannah out into the world yet. I jumped at the chance to have some newborn photos done and they did not disappoint!

And to answer the oft-asked question: as of Thursday she is exactly 7.5 pounds. Most of the world delivers full-term babies bigger than this, which blows my mind! I can't imagine having her still in the womb at her current size, let alone a couple pounds bigger.

ENJOY!

If you look close you can see her smiling!

My handsome 2-year-old

Big Brother

DIMPLES!!

Dressing up girls is seriously the best.

The bink! I love that it gives perspective for her size. She was a little over
five pounds in these pictures.

HOME

It took FOREVER to get a decent photo.

I am so behind on a Savannah update. We made it home 3 days before Owen's birthday, so I even met my goal! She turned a corner during her last couple of days and really just figured everything out. She was discharged after 31 days (3 less than her brother) and NO oxygen. Hallelujah! Sometimes it makes me sad when I think that I basically missed the first month of my baby's life, but once again, we are just grateful she is here and healthy.

So excited to be coming HOME!

The last bottle in the NICU

Our favorite nurse! She was the nurse for my nephew Max when he was in the
NICU 8 years ago. She was also Owen's nurse and saved his life
when he stopped breathing. She's the best. And yes, I'm ignoring my giant
scarf in this picture.

Our chauffeur.

Love.

Lovin on my kiddos. 

Snuggles with Dad.

On our way to the doctor for our weekly weigh-in! She's just over 5 and a half
pounds. Our little porker!

She is such a good baby! I kept telling her in the womb that after everything we were going through to get her here, should would have to be perfect. She must have been listening! She's never cried longer than about 14 seconds, and except for her two night feeds, she sleeps the rest of the night away.

Yes, that is what you think it is. Also, I think she holds the world record
for her umbilical cord - it finally came off after SIX WEEKS.

While she was still in the NICU, one of the head nurses came in to ask me if a local news station could come film us for a news story. I'm definitely not enamored with being on the news, but decided it would be fun for Savannah to look back on, so we said ok. I really didn't know what it was even for, but I did my hair and put some makeup on so I wouldn't look too embarrassing. I laughed to myself when the crew arrived and told me they were doing a story on the new safe sleeping recommendations. Now don't get me wrong, of course I don't want anything bad to happen to my children, but there is NO WAY I'm going to have my child sleep in my bedroom until they are 12 MONTHS OLD. Seriously - whoever makes these recommendations obviously has never raised a child, and they must hate parents. Sometimes I picture them like an evil villain, laughing at all the silly parents who follow their advice to the letter. And here I should pause and say props to anyone out there who actually follows all the guidelines - you are better than me! So they were asking me all sorts of questions about how I was going to follow the new guidelines when we made it home. I basically lied through my teeth and gave the people what they wanted. At least Savannah looked cute and smiled at the camera. But now I'm wondering if I wasn't all that convincing because it still hasn't aired! Joke's on me! ;)

Happiness is a milk coma.

Poor Owen has been through SO much the past few months. His mom leaves him to live in the hospital for  TWENTY EIGHT days (I finally counted). He doesn't see much of either parent that week Savannah was born. Mom finally comes home only to drop him off at Grandma's each day so she can go to the hospital, and when we're finally all together again he discovers he is competing with his sister for attention. And he has handled it all like a champ! Seriously - he only had a couple of meltdowns the week she came home and has been great since then. We've been blessed.

The birthday boy! He's obsessed with soap lately. Should
have just got him his own bottle to play with. ;)

He is usually a very well-behaved kid (don't get me wrong, he's still a kid and he has his moments). Most of his "moments" are at mealtime. So I read up in my favorite parenting book about how to appropriately use time-outs, and was ready to tackle mealtime. The next day at dinner his "awesome" behavior struck again, so Dan carried him to our bathroom downstairs (the designated time-out place because there is no way this kid would sit in a time-out chair for longer than 4 seconds). Unfortunately for Owen, he locked himself in. After a couple minutes of failed locksmithing, Dan decided it was time to break down the door. (Owen was in full-on alligator tears mode by this point.) Thankfully the doors in our new house are cheap and flimsy (and I think it's secretly every man's dream to break down a door). Dan was one kick away from breaking in when Owen hit the magic button and unlocked it. I'm not sure Owen learned his lesson, but his parents sure did!

Looking at "Sahnanna"

Parenting fail #2 occurred last week when I decided it was time to potty train Owen. He just barely turned 2 and has been wee wee-ing on the toilet for months now. But only when I put him on (it's never self-initiated). So I read the book, took notes, bought all the supplies and figured it would be as easy as the example in the book and my two-year-old boy would be trained in a mere few hours. I'm pretty sure the beautiful snow storm we woke up to that morning was a sign. It was screaming at me to skip potty training and let Owen come out and play, but I was determined, naive, proud, and had made up my stubborn mind. It was a disaster and thankfully Owen still loves me. We'll try again. Maybe in 2 years or something. (Kidding. Sort of.) We threw in the towel about an hour before it got dark, so at least he got to make a snowman with dad. These poor oldest children who are the "experiment" child. It's amazing they turn out normal. :)

This is the "before" picture I was going to proudly display when
he was all trained. Parent fail!!

Holiday Life

Remember how the week between Christmas and New Year's includes both Husband's birthday and our wedding anniversary? Just in case you were wondering how we celebrated everything this year, here is a quick re-cap:

Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like donated pizza in the NICU parent lounge. Seriously, the pizza was a god-send. We'd had a crazy morning (snow on Christmas is both BEAUTIFUL and a lot of work. Welcome to being home owners, right?) Our crazy morning meant we didn't have time to put a lunch together before we left, so we were pleasantly surprised when there was real food to eat.

This is the only picture I took on Dan's birthday. I promised him a re-do when life has settled down and I'm fully recovered. Bless him for not being high maintenance when it comes to birthdays.

This was supposed to be a picture of the TWO of us having a romantical lunch of leftovers in the NICU parent lounge. But husband forgot to tell me he had a work lunch that day. So...Happy 5 years to me! I did make sure we watched our wedding video that night, so that sort of (but not really) counts as doing something for the anniversary.

Hooray for family who lives close and let us pop in for a quick New Year's celebration. Usually we play the Wii, but the theme of this year was Old School and the grandkids thought the powerpad was the coolest toy ever.

Owen is handling his crazy life like a champ. Every so often I can tell he misses having his mom around, but overall we've been really blessed and I am so thankful to the Dittos who have basically adopted him the last couple of months.

And of course Miss Savannah is as beautiful as ever. She is such a good baby and is doing really well. I'm trying not to complain about our situation, because really we're just so grateful that she is here and healthy, but can I just say that I am SO done with the hospital? My goal is to have her home by Owen's birthday. Please bless!

Sweet Savannah

Savannah's favorite napping position.

I think I've started this post 4 times now. Obviously my NICU brain is in full swing and I have no idea what happened with the previous 3 versions.

Little Miss Savannah is basically the rockstar of the NICU. She was completely off all oxygen one week after birth. ONE WEEK!! To put that in perspective, it took Owen 2 months to go completely off oxygen (in Owen's defense, he didn't get the steroid shots and he went through a lot of trauma before delivery). She stayed off oxygen for 4 days, but when we started working on teaching her how to eat, she had to go back on a low flow. She just didn't have the energy to eat and breathe all at the same time (this is normal).

No oxygen! It's so nice to see her face (mostly). That last tube is for feeding.

She has amazing nurses and I am reminded daily of the sacred experience it is to spend time in the NICU. Angels walk these halls and it is so neat to be a part of the miracles in these baby's lives.

Savannah is such a sweetie. Once they figured out how much to feed her, the "feistiness" the nurses saw went away. She pretty much never cries and she LOVES looking around at everything when she is awake. She is a great pooper (yes, I'm talking about poop on the blog) and has already nailed me (and her incubator) twice. During those moments I am grateful she's in the NICU because her nurse gets to clean up the mess while I snuggle her. :)

Giving a daily update for a NICU baby isn't really feasible. It's constantly 2 steps forward and one step back but most days don't differ much from the day before. Baby steps.

We have no idea when she will be able to come home. The doctors and nurses also have no idea. If you ask them they will tell you to plan on being here until her due date, and be grateful if she comes home earlier than that. So we are taking things one day at a time and letting her take the lead on how much she can handle. But she is a champ and we are seeing miracles in her development. We think she wants to come home as badly as we want her to!

Spending so much time in the hospital during the holidays means I often forget that Christmas is only a couple of days away. But I am given reminders all the time. Twice now the NICU has allowed Christmas carolers to stand outside the door and serenade us. It's awesome. We were also given a HUGE gift basket full of things only a NICU parent can truly appreciate. People are so good.

Being reunited with Owen is the best. (It's right up there with being reunited with my bed.) It took him about a week to trust that I wasn't going to leave him again, and now we are in a pretty good rhythm.

Owen has learned how to smile for the camera. It's awesome.

Merry Christmas!!

SHE'S HERE!!!

We proudly introduce:

Savannah Marjorie Ditto

Born: Friday, December 9th

Weight: 3 pounds 12 ounces

Height: 16.5 inches 

Dan and I each have a Grandma Marjorie, and when we realized she was born on my grandma's birthday we knew we had to incorporate the name. Owen calls her "Uhhhhhhhh-nana". Unfortunately he won't be able to see her until we bring her home. :(

The delivery took place without a hitch (except they had to give me 2 blocks because the 1st one only sort of worked). There were several scary potential scenarios that I was at risk for, but thankfully they ended up being non-issues and it was all fairly routine.

She has lots of dark wavy hair, dark eyes and the longest baby feet you ever did see. She's got at least a few weeks in the NICU, but that was expected. The nurses tell me she can be feisty for her diaper changes (oh boy!) and her little cry sounds like a kitten. We are in love and can't wait to bring her home so we can finally all be together!

Day 22 - The End is Near!

31 Weeks!

We keep learning over and over again that making plans is futile. Babies come when they decide to come (or in our case, when the docs decide to make them come).

Backing up a bit here - I've become well-versed in telling the 20-second version of why I'm here (each time I get a new nurse I have explaining to do). I also have a 2-minute version, and the more in-depth 5-10 minute version depending both on my mood and how inquisitive the nurse is. I will say that in general I get a jaw drop when they hear about my uterine rupture. Yes, it's that rare. But to tell the full story I have to back all the way up to tell about sweet Lydia. Rather than go into details here, if you're interested you can read this article. Minus the part about the happy ending, this is our exact.same.story. For reals. I like to think/hope that maybe what we went through helped the doctors to know how to save that little girl. What a blessing that she made it!

Anyway - because of that scary surgery where they removed Lydia's tumor (for us it happened when I was 25 weeks pregnant), the doctor had to utilize a vertical ("classical") incision, and it's rather large. Normal c-sections utilize a horizontal scar that is in the lower part of the uterus, thus minimizing any risk for rupturing.  It was my giant incision that spontaneously opened when I was 32 weeks pregnant with Owen. I was at home. Putting meat balls in the oven. And my doctor is quick to remind me that by all accounts, Owen and I should not have survived.

There is no way to predict a rupture, which is why I've spent the past 22 days living at the hospital. (By the time I leave, I will have spent more time here than in our new house. Go figure.) So I'm not technically on "bed rest." I do not have an iv. I am in the hospital "just in case" I rupture again so they can whisk me down to the operating room and save me and baby right away. My room is the closest room to the elevators for that very reason.

So the question of the last 22 days has been "when should we deliver?" I have to deliver via c-section (the contracting that occurs in a normal delivery would increase the rupture chances exponentially), and obviously we are trying to avoid another rupture. The goal has always been to get to 32 weeks, and then take it from there. Obviously the longer the baby stays in, the better things are for her (and less time in the NICU!) But it's a bit of a gamble. Dan and I discussed everything there is to discuss and decided we felt really good about waiting until December 19th. I would be 33 weeks and 2 days - exactly one week beyond where I was with Owen. We felt it was a good middle ground of not pushing my body too far, but letting baby "cook" a while longer. So much for that plan! My doc came in yesterday afternoon and explained that she had just come from a long meeting with all the other high-risk doctors that was all about me! (I don't know how I feel about being so well-known around here for my crazy medical history.) Basically all of the doctors agreed that it would be crazy to let me get as far as I was with Owen. So instead of delivering on the 19th, we are delivering on the NINTH. As in, Friday. As in, TWO days from now.

We knew she would be coming early, but I thought I would at least have another week. Mostly though, we're just grateful for amazing medical care that can allow us to grow our family. And just in case you were wondering, going through all of this is more than worth it for the life we were able to give Lydia. I would do it again and more if I had to. Families are Forever!

Day 19

In attempting to focus on the silver lining of this eternal hospital stay, I came to quite the realization the other day: being in the hospital is just like being on a cruise! And I don't even get sea sick!  Think about it: I don't cook, ever. My food is brought to me and I can eat in bed if I want (and I don't have to tip the delivery man!) My nurses refill my water several times a day. My private room and bathroom get cleaned daily (along with the garbage removal). The elevators are NOT equipped with mats to tell me what day of the week it is, but since the nurses update it on my white board every day, I don't even have to keep track of a calendar. And I even managed to make friends with one of the kitchen workers who now makes sure that I get a smoothie of my choice delivered every afternoon. So I'm basically living the dream over here! ;)

But, I'd like to think that after about 10 days of cruising it would start to get old, and 10 days was about when all of the "perks" started losing their appeal. Since I'm here on an "extended vacation" they let me order my meals from the cafeteria menu (which is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH better than the regular food the patients are offered). But now even the cafeteria food is just ok and I'm ready for normal food again.

Um, does anyone else notice the blob of mystery meat on here?
Seriously - it made me gag like crazy and I couldn't
touch anything else because of it's nastiness. They seriously expect
pregnant women to be able to put that down?

Thanks to lots of phone calls and visits the days are not as monotonous as I thought they would be. I even found a piano that I sneak off to play every once in a while when the room gets left unlocked (yes, I know this hospital well!) Also, I take a nap pretty much every day (because, why not?) I'm hoping by the time baby girl gets here that I'm well-rested and ready for the crazy few weeks of recovering and juggling my NICU baby and my Owen. But of course the last few nights my pregnant hormones have kicked in and I'm starting to not sleep all that great (but lets remember that I'm in a hospital - lots of noise and lights and a teeny awkward bed probably don't help either.) One of the perks of delivering my babes early is supposed to be that I skip all the late-pregnancy woes, but it's almost like my body knows what's going to happen so it's kicking in anyway. Go figure.

Owen chugging the milk I save for him every day. He spilled it ALL OVER ME
about 30 seconds after I took this picture. I got to walk back to my room from the
cafeteria looking like I wet myself. 

Owen continues to amaze me with his awesomeness. It took about 10 days before both of us could say goodbye without sobbing. Which on one hand is great, that he's doing well, but on another hand makes me sad that he is used to life without his momma. Sigh. Thankfully he visits lots and he now knows how to get to the fish tank and his favorite statue.

This little spot was MADE for Owen. There is a light switch AND a sink all
within arms reach. He sat and played there for a good 30 minutes one day.