6 week update!

Well, Friday's tomorrow has quickly turned in to today's Tuesday, which just happens to also mean that Henry is now 6 weeks old! But, before I get into updating you on Henry I need to put up some kitchen pictures.

Basically, our previous kitchen had a total of 3 feet of counter top space and 5 cabinets that we used. It was tiny, it was cramped, and it was not very organized.

The kitchen needed a lot of work. We* had to take out the cabinets and counters, moved the fridge to the other way, build a small wall and bulkhead to match up with the other wall, move a gas line for the oven, and install a new drain for the soon to be installed dishwasher. 

We even let Gramzy take a break from the kitchen to hold Henry

However, with the help of my parents (and my brother too) the kitchen is completely different. With new counter tops (a 10 foot stretch that L's into another 3 feet of counter top), new cabinets, and the microwave installed the way it should be and a Dishwasher on the way, this kitchen is a dream come true for our little family. It felt like we had won the lottery! Take a look...

* When I say We, I mean my mom and dad :)

The picture doesn't quite do it justice. I told The Wifey that I felt like I was walking in to an advertisement for a new kitchen. It's pretty amazing.

And now on to my little man, Henry. Today he turned 6 weeks old and he has definitely changed so much in that little bit of time.

 

 

 

 

He slept through the entire church service! Just like his old man...

"I'm gonna get you!"

Over the past few days Henry has had a little cough at times and his cry sounded a little bit different than usual. So, today The Wifey called the doctor and they asked her to bring him in to be looked at. Needless to say, we're a little extra sensitive when it comes to anything related to his breathing after his stay in the NICU. After examining Henry the doctor determined that Henry does have a virus and for us to keep him inside as much as we can and continue to monitor him. (He seems to be better already) But the doctor also said that he thinks that Henry is a little dehydrated and that They Wifey should offer to nurse him at least every 2 hours during the day. I thought the notion of him being dehydrated was a little crazy after I learned what the little guy weighed in at today. Drum roll please......
Henry weighed in today, at 6 weeks old, at 11 pounds 1 ounce! That means he has gained 3 pounds 2 ounces since being born and 1 pound 9 ounces in just the past 2 weeks, and he's dehydrated?!? I guess I shouldn't have told him how big his cousin is...

The Wifey also put shoes on him today and he fit perfectly in a pair of 3-6 month old shoes. I guess it runs in the family. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how big he his at his 2 month appointment.
Thanks for checking in!
Peace

A lifetime ago...

Well to be honest I guess it's more like half of a lifetime ago that I last posted something on here and so I apologize for any who are going through Henry withdrawal. It seems bringing your first child home after spending 10 days in the NICU and then the following week having your kitchen completely remodeled can make your house, and your life in general, an explosion of craziness.

Let me fill you in on how our little guy is doing so far. Henry will be 6 weeks old on Tuesday and had his one month check up 10 days ago and here are his numbers. He weighed in at 9lbs 7oz for a total weight gain from birth of 1lb 8oz putting him somewhere in the 40's% range. He measured at 21.25" for a total increase in length from birth at 2.25" also putting him somewhere in the 40's% range. I was kind of surprised by him not being in a higher percentile cause he seems to have grown so much but The Wifey reminded me that breastfed babies tend to start out a little more slowly than their formula fed counterparts.

Bath time actually goes surprisingly well!

Henry got to visit with our Great Dane Doo and his grandma's Chihuahua Lula. It was neat going from one dog with a head the same size as his entire body to another dog that was about the same size and weight. But both dogs did very well with the little guy.

It was a great visit with both families. My brother also got a chance to hold Henry for the first time.

A lot has happened in the past five and a half weeks and at this point it's almost impossible to remember life before Henry. Although it can be very trying at 3am when he is screaming and crying to keep calm he has a way of putting what is really important in life into perspective. Tomorrow I will put up some pictures from his first day at church and an update on our awesome new kitchen! But for now here's a little something to hold you over...

Sleeping in church already!

What a week...

It's hard to believe that Henry has been home with us for a week now. After finding out that he was going to be in the NICU for 10 days I remember talking to The Wifey about how we were going to last that long and here we are a full week of us being a family together. This past week has been a busy one but it has been made easier by people from church delivering us dinner every night. Thankfully, we have been able to get out of the house this week and Henry got to go to his first Chinese Buffet!

I finally got to wear the hat that mommy made me!

Today was a pretty crazy day. We had decided to go to the Hickory Apple Festival with my brother, but once we got to the other side of Pittsburgh it had started to rain. So instead we decided to use the time to visit family, including pets!

Doo is our 140 lb great dane and he is a gentle giant!

After Henry passed the Doo inspection my brother was able to hold him for the first time. He certainly looks like a happy uncle!

The Wifey informed me that Henry's outfit cost a total of about $7 because she got the pants from her mom for $1 the socks from my sister for free and the rest from Old Navy for about $6 (including the sweet zip up hoodie). That's pretty awesome considering the hoodie alone is on sale at Old Navy again this season for about $15. After visiting with his uncle little Henry was off to visit The Wifey's aunt and uncle and their daughter along with her 2 little boys. Afterwards we went to visit Henry's grandma!

The dog in the picture is named Lula and she is a rather skittish Chihuaha, however she took to Henry right away. It was neat to see Henry next to a dog whose head was the same size as him and then a dog who was about the exact same size!

After we got home The Wifey and I got to rest for a bit while Henry slept in his car seat. It was glorious! We were eagerly awaiting for the delivery of our dinner for the night. A few days before I had asked The Wifey if it would be rude to ask someone to just bring us a pizza instead of a home cooked meal and wouldn't you know it, the next day I got an email from someone signed up to bring us dinner asking if we would just like them to bring us a pizza! After our delicious pizza dinner (and cake!) we decided it was time to give Henry his first full on wipe down bath type deal. He did ummm ok :)

What are you doing to me??

Anything but the comb, anything!!

Ok well maybe I do look good...

And so to recap the past week...We are all still alive! Henry is sleeping at least one 4 hour period per night. He is a cutie! Most importantly, he only cries when there is a reason and once we figure out what it is he is perfectly calm and relaxed. This has been a crazy week but an amazing one too!

Also, for those who are interested this is what our kitchen currently looks like...

For any of those out there thinking to yourself, "Hey, that looks exactly ike it did before he took the doors and pulls off." You would be correct. Tomorrow my mom and dad will be coming over to begin work on the kitchen and they requested that I put everything back the way it was so that we can donate the cabinets to an organization like Construction Junction. This way we will be able to take them off the wall, put them in the truck, and take them away, without having to worry about any missing pieces.

And I thought this past week was crazy...

Welcome home Henry!

It's hard to believe but little Henry will be 2 weeks old tomorrow. Wow! It sounds so cliche but seriously where has the time gone? Well I guess driving to the hospital every day and now trying to figure out who is awake and who can nap eats up most of our time lately. But enough about me, let me share some pictures from the past few days and the homecoming of Henry.

Apparently our little guy likes to squirm around and loses his pacifier so they taped it to a burp cloth and he was as happy as can be.

Henry's uncle got in one last visit before he would be heading back home in Missouri. It was really great that he was able to get to see Henry twice while he was here visiting all things considered. Unforunately, I wasn't able to see Henry that day (or the next 2 days) because I had a wonderful case of Bronchitis... this was such a crazy emotional roller coaster ride. But thankfully The Wifey took some pictures when she visited.

Also, our good friend Monica was able to meet The Wifey at the hospital so she wasn't alone while she visited Henry.

She has been such an amazing friend to The Wifey during this whole crazy pregnancy and then the trip to the NICU.

Finally, on September 22nd we got the news we had been hoping for and were told that we would be able to bring Henry home the following day, making it a fun 10 days that we had been waiting to bring our little man home. Needless to say we were rather excited!

You can't hear it, but Heny is screaming Go Steelers!

I can't really describe how much I looked forward to finally being able to take the "taking home baby" picture. We were so close. Now all we had to do was get him in the car and he was actually ours!!

The Wifey is thinking to herself, "Hurry up before they say we can't take him!"

The rest of the pictures are of our little man at home with us. We were finally all together as a family in our house which was truly a home.

Troy Polamalu Jersey, Terrible Towel, Gray Sweatpants - definitely one of the family

P.S. I love swaddle blankets almost as much as Henry does.

Let's play ketchup with H.J. Libert!

So needless to say things have been busy the past few days. Thankfully Henry is definitely where he needs to be. As The Wifey and I struggle to figure out exactly what is going on it helps to remind ourselves that as much as we wish where he needs to be was here with us we know that he is exactly where he needs to be to get healthy and strong. So this post will be mostly pictures because I know that's what you really want! I'll post them in chronological order and try to give some meaning to them and what we were going through as each day arrived.

So, on Wednesday I went and picked The Wifey up from the hospital and we went straight to the NICU where Henry was. And this is what we saw...

The Wifey was amazed to see that he slept just like me!

Thankfully, we were each able to hold the little guy! This made the scariness a little less scary.

He has "Special Hands" just like his cousin :)

We learned that he probably had pneumonia and they would continue to monitor him and we would just have to wait and see how things played out...

On Thursday we went back to the NICU, at times I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that my son was in the ICU and I had to go visit him at the hospital. This was no where near anything we had planned or prepared for.

The little guy was still in his incubator and was beginning to breath a litte bit better. He now had a feeding tube and they were beginning to feed some formula to him and were also able to feed him some of what The Wifey had pumped. This was very encouraging. We were also able to hold him again all wrapped up like a Baby Burrito...

This is my absolute favorite picture so far!

Before we left we put the little guy back in his bed and told him we loved him and we would be back tomorrow...

On Friday we went back to the hospital and The Wifey's mom and brother came to visit as well. My brother-in-law flew in from out of state to visit the guy and it was actually only the second time we had gotten to really hang out with each other. Henry was great with both grandma and uncle!

I got to hold him again and it was truly a wonderful thing. As soon as he got in my arms he quited down almost immediately fell asleep. I felt like a champ!

The Wifey got to hold him again and even got to feed him! This was really unexpected and made the both of us incredibly happy and encouraged. Maybe the little guy would be able to come home sooner than we thought...

Later that night my mom, aka Gramzy, got to visit him as well. She didn't get to hold but she was their when he got cleaned up a little and weighed for the day. Henry lost 2 oz since he was born, but that is perfectly normaly for any newborn. We'll see you tomorrow Henry!

When we visited our little boy on Saturday I forgot to bring in my camera. Gramzy took some photos but I still have to get them off of her. We found out that they were hoping to put him in a "room air crib" if he kept improving like they thought he was. We would also find out on Sunday the results of his most recent Xray and whether or not the antibiotics were having the desired effect.

On Sunday The Wifey and I showed up decked out in our Steelers gear hoping that Henry would help cheer them on to a win. If you watched the game, you know our little man did his part! But even more exciting than that was seeing him in a different setting...

Our little Steelers Fan was in an open air crib and that was more exciting than any Steeler's game no matter how good! The Wifey was able to feed him again, and boy does he have an appetite. We also learned today that he is definitely improving! But, he definitely has pneumonia and will need at least another 5 days of antibiotics :-/ Not exactly the news we were looking for, but it helps to know that things are working out and there is a move home date in sight! I got to feed him today for the first time and he is still alive! Mission accomplished :) I'll hopefully have some pictures of me feeding him to post tomorrow but I hope for now you have gotten your fix of little Henry.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!