baby bump #2

21 weeks.

26 weeks.

31 weeks.

then holden arrived at 33 weeks.

we're home!

after 25 days in the hospital, we finally got to bring holden home.

best. day. ever.

we feel very blessed with how well everything worked out while holden was in the hospital, but we are still so happy that it is over.

it is nice to have our family all together again.

the first few days that holden was in the NICU it seemed like he was progressing so quickly.

but once he was stable, and all he had to do was learn to eat and breath on his own, progress seemed like it shifted to a painfully slow pace.

i was constantly trying to think of what i could do to speed things - what i could do to get that boy home faster.

but then i realized there was nothing more i could do.

it was just a waiting game. we just had to wait for holden to mature and then he would get it.

and eventually he did.

he is a great little eater now.

breathing is still a bit of an issue, but not enough to keep holden in the hospital.

instead, they sent him home on oxygen and a heart rate/apnea monitor.

we were so excited to be done with all the tubes and cords at the hospital, but it looks like we will have to wait a bit longer to get rid of them.

it's not terrible, but it definitely makes things more complicated.

getting out of the house is quite the production! everywhere little holden goes, the awkward oxygen tank and monitor go too. ugh.

needless to say, holden hasn't gone very far from home! just on a few family walks.

but other then the extra equipment we have kicking around the house, things are going really well.

holden is such a good baby.

we think the fact that both our babies have spent time in noisy hospitals has made them extraordinary sleepers.

by the time we bring them home they have learned to sleep through the hustle and bustle of the NICU, they have been put on a good eat/sleep schedule, and they have learned how to calm themselves without being held. it's actually a pretty good deal :)

holden sleeps most of the day away. he wakes up to eat every 4 hours and then dozes back off.

i often feel guilty with the lack of thought and creativity i have to put into his life.

newborns are so simple!

although, i didn't feel that way with chet, so i guess it is all perspective..

speaking of chet..

on the drive back to richfield, matt and i were curious to see if chet would remember our home down here.

we weren't sure he would recognize our apartment because it had been so long and because we hadn't lived in it all that long before holden was born.

plus, he had started calling the hospital guesthouse 'home' and confidently walked around that building like it was his!

but he definitely remembered his real home.

when we drove into our apartment parking lot chet started cheering, 'our home! our home! house house house!'.

he was so thrilled to be back with his toys and his big bed.

it was fun to see him so happy.

i totally felt the same way. i'm not sure i have ever been so ready to go home as i was after that hospital stay.

it really was a struggle to be away from my husband and my home during such a tough time.

thank goodness chet and i had my mom with us. we may not have survived without her.

matt was a trooper through all this. he worked so hard all week and then would make the drive up to provo to be with us on the weekends and holidays.

he was exhausted but he never complained.. not even when his sad wife would call him in the wee hours of the night. what a guy.

but, despite how well he seemed to handle things, i know he missed me...

the first lunch i packed for him when i got back was pretty lame - a PB&J and some snacks.

but, when he headed out the door to work with it, he said, 'thanks! this is the best lunch i've had in weeks.'

oh dear!

[now for the last few hospital pictures...]

holden started out like this:

and now he looks like this:

holden got moved around to different beds during his stay in the hospital, but he spent the last half of his stay in this area:

in this bed:

always wrapped in the same hospital blankets:

and we cuddled in these chairs:

chet loves his 'baby budder'.

he likes to give him headbutts and hugs.

he thinks holden has cute feet.

he likes to try to share all sorts of inappropriate things with him. (peanut butter, his bike, his favorite dvds..)

he thinks he is special when he gets to hold him.

he considers it an honor to pass me wipes when i am changing holden's bum.

and he is so pleased when he is asked to put holden's dirty diapers in the trash. "ya! sure!"

so far, it looks like these boys will be good buds.

happy 3 week birthday holden!

holden celebrated by squirting me with poop while i was changing him. what a stinker.

i have mixed feelings about this 3 week birthday.

part of me is happy because the older he gets the sooner i will be able to take him home.

but the other part of me is sad because i feel like i have been wishing these first 3 weeks away. and i would really love to just treasure them.

soon enough.

things have actually been looking very promising the past few days.

the doctors have even mentioned the H word!

{home}

yes!

i almost feel like i am betraying chet if i blog about holden and not him..

so here is chet and his new "pack pack" from grandma.

i fell asleep while googling double strollers the other day.

literally, i woke up with my hands still on the keyboard.

i am officially an exhausted mom again... and i don't even have my little guy home yet!

holden is still a little pip-squeek but he is getting a little bit stronger every day.

i know this next picture is blurry, but it shows how little holden is.

i thought he might be able to fit into some of chet's pre-shrunk newborn clothes... but nope!

this is a newborn onesie laying on holden. you can't even see his feet out the bottom!

eating is still the main thing we need to work on.

this is his very first bottle. despite the smile on matt's face, it was not a very successful feed..

holden ate a lame 3mL on his own that night. not too impressive!

but he has done a little better with nursing the past couple days.

hopefully he will keep it up.

eating is just such hard work. holden prefers to sleep.

he is the best little snuggle bug.

 on sunday we took chet into the hospital to hang with his brother for a few minutes.

i can't wait for holden to come home so that chet can spend more time with him.
this is all still very confusing for chet's 2-year old brain. and for good reason.

so far these brothers have maybe spent 30 minutes together -  in 2.5 weeks. it makes me sad.
i even have a hard time feeling like holden is mine when i am supervised during diaper changes, i have never bathed him, and i got in trouble for falling asleep while holding him. ugh!
chet really did like holding his baby brother this visit though.

yes, that is a mustache on matt's face :( 

and then eventually the spinny chair was more exciting..

grandma and holden.

i usually spend about 6-7 hours/day at the hospital. most of them are when chet is sleeping.
[before he wakes up, during his nap, and after bedtime]

i definitely don't feel like i get enough time with holden. 

it was much easier to spend all my time at the hospital when chet was in the NICU because i didn't have another kid at home to love.

this time around i feel torn between chet and holden. i want to spend my time with both of them.

i know holden doesn't necessarily care if i am with him, but i sure do.
chet, on the other hand, definitely notices when i'm not there.
he was pretty ticked with me for the first week or two of holden's life. it has been really tough on me.
chet and i have always been such good buddies and now he has replaced me with grandma.
i can't complain too much though... we would be in major trouble without all the help my mom has given us.
and i am sure i will win chet back once life settles down!

here are a few pictures of chetty some fun things.
[bike riding, splash pad, eating out of a truck, swimming with dad, talking to bugs.]

and here is our exhuasted little family.

this little man is now 35 weeks old. and today will be his 12th day in the NICU.

he has come a long way since he was born. 

he is now maintaining his own body temperature, he hardly needs any oxygen, and he no longer gets any food through an IV.

he is also almost back up to his birth weight. he is 4lbs 10 oz right now.

but he still has lots of maturing to do - mostly in the area of eating.

holden gets all of his milk pumped into his tummy through a nose tube right now. and he shows very little interest in learning how to do it any other way. lazy bones!

the doctors and nurses assure us that holden is just 'acting his age' and that a baby his age is too young to understand the concept of suck-swallow-breath. it is like asking an 8-month old to walk... probably not gonna happen.

the doctors think it will be a couple more weeks, at least.

so we wait...

it is really hard to be patient - i want nothing more then to bring that munchkin home - but we don't have much choice.

and i'm sure holden will be worth the wait :)

i love it when girls share their delivery stories, so i made a special effort to record the details of mine the night after i delivered. not necessarily for the purpose of sharing it, but more because i wanted to have it documented for my own sake. i have added a few more details since i initially wrote it down. and it has gotten quite long, i know. so i will understand if no one reads it! there are lots of pictures at the end. so feel free to scroll on down.

i went into preterm labor at 29 weeks. the doctor was able to stop the contractions to let baby grow a little longer but eventually they started up again, and never completely stopped until i delivered. it was all very similar to when i was pregnant with chet. the contractions would come for several hours at a time and then fade off for the rest of the day. although i did not like them, they were never more then i could handle. but on monday june 25 i started to have some really uncomfortable contractions early in the morning (about 2am). the pain was lower then usual and, at times, took my breath away. i was able to eventually fall back asleep a few times but in the morning the contractions were still coming quite regularly and very strong. matt headed off to work as usual, and i tried to go ahead with my normal morning routine of tidying the house, walking tank, and feeding chet breakfast.

[a funny side story (which did not seem funny at the time)... i had left chet in our apartment to run our trash to the dumpster with tank at about 10am and chet locked me out! usually if i ever choose to leave him quick like that i take our apartment keys just in case. but i wasn’t feeling very well, and my hands were full, so i had forgot. when i got back to the apartment i was so frustrated. i could hear chet but he had no interest in opening the door for me! i was sitting in a ball of pain outside our front door waiting for matt to hurry back from work to save me when our neighbor right across from us came outside and told me that it was super easy to break into these apartments. her husband grabbed a screwdriver and honestly had the door open in about 10 seconds. this isn’t something that makes me feel very safe but i was so just happy to get inside!]

after that little episode i rushed off to chet’s swim lesson at 11am. matt thought i was crazy for going, but i was hoping that wading in the cool water would help ease the contractions. it didn’t. and i think chet could sense that i didn’t want to be there because he was acting like he didn’t want to be there either. then we had to walk home. i kept having to stop with every contraction and wait out the pain. i’m sure i looked ridiculous!

now i’m at home.. the contractions were about 7 minutes apart and had me paralyzed when they hit. i wanted my doctor to check me out but i knew we had a long drive to get to him so i wanted to make sure this wasn’t a false call. i called matt and we decided it would be worth the journey up to american fork. he would come home at 2pm and we would start the 2 hour drive. i showered and we packed up enough stuff to survive with if the baby actually was going to come. that was the first time we had 2 car seats in the back of our car! it looks very busy back there now. 

the drive was stressful. matt was trying his best to hurry and i was trying to deal with the pain. thankfully chet slept most of the way so we didn’t have to worry about him, and he was well rested for the adventures that were to come.

we drove all the way up to the hospital in american fork because that is where my doctor works out of. once i got checked in, a doctor (not mine) prescribed me a series of 3 pills to slow the contractions. but, after the 3rd, i was still contracting. so then they checked me... 7cm and 100%. oh dear. you should have seen the nurses face. she was such a drama queen! but no wonder i had spent most of the day bent over in pain! at that point, i was told there was no way i was going home. i was rushed to labor and delivery, attacked with more needles and pills then i knew what to do with, and thrown in an ambulance to be transported to utah valley in provo (because they have a better NICU). it all happened sooo fast. i was scared. and the ambulance ride was awful. i was so jealous of matt and chet who got to drive themselves over to our new hospital.. and stop at mcdonalds on the way. i got to my new labor and delivery room at about 7pm and was told that i would be lucky to make it through the next 12 hours before delivering. ideally they wanted baby to hang on a couple more days so he would be 34 weeks, but they weren’t counting on it. (34 weeks was still 4 days away).

[this was when my parents left calgary to come help us..]

we hung out in our big, fancy labor and delivery room the rest of the night. chet went to sleep in a travel crib in the corner and didn’t make a peep until the next morning. seriously could we ask for a better kid?! i don’t think so.

the contractions had totally stopped by 9pm and now it was a waiting game. it was a long night. we were both exhausted, but i couldn’t sleep. at 3am i woke matt up sobbing.  i wanted to go home. it sounds ridiculous, i know, but i hate hospitals and i was so emotional...so i really wanted to go home. matt is so patient with me. he got up and sat on my bed for an hour talking me through my irrational thoughts and playing games with me. at about 4am we turned off the lights. and then at 6:45am the real fun began...

i woke up to go to the bathroom for, what seemed like, the hundredth time that night. but this time was special because while i was washing my hands my water broke! i was in shock. and totally grossed out! i called to matt. he opened the door to see me standing in a giant puddle and who-knows-what and saying “i think my water broke..” duh! that was at 6:45am.

i got back in my bed. the nurse came in to check me. i still had no contractions and i hadn’t changed from the 7cm i was the night before. at that point i am clarifying (for the 97th time) that i want an epidural - i NEED an epidural. she calls the doctor. since baby was clearly going to the NICU the nurse unlocks my bed to move it to the OR to deliver. then contraction number 1 hits me. it was unreal. it felt like the baby was already on it’s way out, and i was freaking out. i was actually on the phone with my mom, checking to see how much further they had to drive, when the pain hit. my mom said “oh pam, don’t cry. it will be ok.” and i snapped back “i’m not crying, i’m having a contraction! i can’t talk. bye.” my mom says that she got off the phone with me, called my sister, and when she hung up there was a text from matt with a picture of the baby. so.. things moved really fast from this point! the nurse stops moving the bed and she checks me again. i was 10cm! i didn’t even know it was possible to dilate that fast. it had seriously only been a couple minutes. now the doctor is paged to RUN to the OR.

as they were wheeling me to the OR i am frantically explaining that “i can’t do this without the epidural. i can’t do this without the epidural!” and i meant it with all my heart.

we get to the OR. contraction number 2 hits and i couldn’t believe how much my body wanted to push. with chet i wanted nothing to do with pushing but, with this baby, it was like i couldn’t stop myself. i am so terrified by this point. there is honestly no better word to describe me. TERRIFIED. shaking. i am still frantically asking for the epidural so the doctor tells me to roll over on my side and he starts wiping my back at the injection site. i am clinging to the side of the bed when the nurse says “stop! the baby’s head is right there!”. what?? no! so now they are telling me i’m not going to get an epidural and are trying to convince me to roll on my back to push. but there was not a bloody chance i was letting go of that bedside. “i can’t do this! i can’t do this!” finally i get the guts to let go of the bedside in exchange for matts neck. i literally put him in a headlock and contraction number 3 hits. 1 wimpy push and baby is out. it was insane! unfortunately, neither matt or i saw a thing because i was holding onto his neck for dear life! i had delivered a baby without any medication. that was the last thing i ever wanted to do, but i did it! the time of birth was 7:07am... just 20 minutes after my water broke. holy smokes. thank goodness we didn't go home like i had wanted. we would have been in major trouble. baby was 4lbs 12oz. and 18.5 inches long. he was much bigger then i was expecting, that’s for sure. i honestly don’t know where he was hiding all these months!

i got to hold baby for about 10 seconds - just long enough to kiss his tiny head and snap an ugly picture. he looked so small and that scared me. but he was screaming like crazy, and the doctor assured me that was a very good thing. matt and baby left for the NICU and i was wheeled back to my room where chet was just waking up. the nurse got him some crackers and juice and we sat in bed watching thomas the train and waiting for news on chet’s new baby brother.

i got to meet and hold baby at about 10am. it seemed like a very long couple hours of waiting to see my sweet boy. but it was worth it. i still don’t feel like he is mine, but i sure do love every inch of him. my parents arrived at about 3pm. we are so grateful for their help. we were exhausted and needed some extra hands. they got to meet baby and see chet meet baby. it was too fun. chet said “hi buddy!” when he saw him. he definitely doesn’t understand what is going on yet though. he is still under the impression that the baby we have been talking about for the past few months is in HIS tummy! hmm...

we had 2 names we really liked for this baby. it was super hard to decide which one we liked best. we played a bunch of games again to try and make a decision but it wasn’t until we got to hold him later that night that we decided that Holden Emmett was the perfect name for him. randomly, his first nurse in the NICU had the last name holden, so it’s like it was meant to be!

physically this recovery has been a breeze. i can’t get over how good my body has felt. my recovery wasn’t bad with chet, but this time i haven’t had much to complain about. a couple hours after delivery i felt just fine walking up to the NICU. (although chet thought it was more fun to get wheelchair rides with me instead!) the worst part might be that my back is covered in a terrible rash from the epidural prep. it happened with both deliveries. i guess i am just allergic to whatever they wipe on your back to prep you for the injection. but this time it doesn’t seem fair to have to deal with the rash because i didn’t even get to reap the benefits of the epidural! since i was contracting for weeks before delivery, my body hadn’t gained hardly any weight. in fact, i was losing it near the end. it was like a constant workout of contractions and fighting against contractions. in the end my total weight gain was less then what holden weighed, so that is one less thing i have to worry about! i guess that is one small perk to having a premie. so ya, physically is has been easy. emotionally.. not so much. there is just so much stress and heartache involved in having a sick baby. it makes me a little... unstable. some days are much better then others, but i think the next month is going to be seem very long! thank goodness i have the sweetest husband on the planet and an incredible mom who plans on sticking by my side through this whole mess.

yes, my mom is here with me because matt has to go back to richfield for work. and since holden is stuck here, i am stuck here. there is no way i could be here with chet and holden on my own. even with my mom here i am absolutely torn between my two boys. i wish i could spend all day with both of them. but chet is only allowed in the NICU for short visits on weekends. so that makes everything very tricky. we are currently staying in the hospital guest house. it isn’t ideal. it is like a hotel and doesn’t feel super cozy. but it couldn’t be closer to the hospital, and i really like knowing that i am just a short walk from my sweet little holden.

poor chet is so thrown off his groove lately. it kills me. he keeps saying that he wants to go home and i wish so bad i could give him that. i know just how he feels, i want to go home too. please please please keep holden and chet in your prayers. it would mean the world to me! and thanks for all the prayers that have been offered already. we know there have been many!

{pictures}

brand new baby.

a couple hours after delivery i got to go up to the NICU to see my baby. this is what he looked like.

we couldn't get over how well chet did with everything. it could have been a really terrible experience if he had chose to be a stinker.

this is when our whole family ate lunch together in my hospital bed.

later that afternoon we got to take chet up to meet his brother.

and then my parents arrived so they got to meet baby too.

holden was hooked up to the c-pap machine for the first 2 days.

it made it tricky to get a good look at his face..

we got to go snuggle with holden at the end of day 1.

that was when we officially decided on his name.

this is just a picture of my collection of hospital bracelets. matt was jealous.

now holden is off the c-pap and only has a little oxygen tube. (and about a billion other tubes connected to every part of his body!)

but at least now we can see his precious little face.

 he looks so small in matt's arms...

...and next to my big head!

we have tried a couple times to get a cute family photo.
but the circumstances make it a little tricky!

 my mom has been able to visit holden lots. but on sunday, she finally got to hold him.

she was a very happy grandma!

we decided to have chet and holden give each other gifts at their first real visit.

chet gave holden a ball. holden gave chet a big ol' Ford F-250 remote control car. 

can you guess which parent bought which gift?!

holden is spending some time under the UV lights for jaundice now.

i will be excited when he is done with the lights because i like to see his little eyes.

 we love holden!