Home Sweet Home

Avery did pretty well during the first night after her surgery. Luckily we had a bed and a recliner in the room. Tim and I actually slept very well that night. She woke up a few times throughout the night. The next morning her breathing didn't sound too good. She sounded almost like she was wheezing so the respiratory therapist came up and we all decided that an albuterol breathing treatment sounded like a good idea. She still didn't sound great throughout the morning and early afternoon. It was looking like we were going to be spending another night (another Thanksgiving night to be exact) in the hospital. Since the surgery, Avery wanted nothing to do with eating. She didn't even want us to use a dropper and drop formula into her mouth. We gave her some formula through her gtube and gave her some pain meds. One minute she was cranky, fussy and uncomfortable looking. The next minute she was a completely different baby. Even the nurse noticed. She was trying to crawl around in her crib, climb on Tim and was happy and smiling. The nurse paged the doctor and we were able to come home!

The first night at home wasn't too bad. She went to bed around 10:45. I gave her some oxycodone around 4:30 and she wouldn't go back to sleep. For some reason, I think Avery has a reverse reaction with the oxycodone. Instead of making her calm and sleepy, it makes her more awake. After about 45 minutes she fell back asleep until 8:30 this morning. She is doing pretty well. Much better than I thought she would be doing. Some moments she is smiling and acting completely fine and then the next minute she is fussy and nothing seems to comfort her. She is still refusing to eat anything by mouth. I am definitely thankful she has a gtube. If she didn't, we would still be at the hospital.

Another issue she was having is that she hadn't pooped since Tuesday. It's most likely due to the anesthesia and pain meds. We decided to give her some prune juice to help things a long. We gave her some throughout the day. I was worried there would be a blowout when she finally pooped. We were giving her a bath and all of a sudden I looked down and she had pooped in the water. Go figure! It could have been worse, it could have been diarrhea.

Dr. Doumit called me this morning to see how she was. I asked him how many stitches were in Avery's mouth and he said about 50. 50 stitches in our little girl's mouth. No wonder she doesn't want to eat. I wouldn't want to either if I had 50 stitches in my mouth.

We haven't really had to use the arm restraints which was one of my biggest fears about the surgery. I am off of work for a week so I am constantly watching her. She has only tried to put one thing in her mouth so far. I am sure this will change as soon as she starts feeling better and wanting to chew on everything in sight.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Tim and I are thankful for all the love, support and prayers from our friends and family. We were so happy that Avery got to come home yesterday and not spend another holiday night in the hospital.

I fell asleep holding onto my bib and Care Bear

Snuggling with Mommy

 I received some pain meds and then stared at my glowing toe for awhile :-)

Ta Da! I am feeling much better. Check out my sweet hair!

Home at last and playing with my new toy. Mommy and Daddy wanted to get me something that I wouldn't try to put in my mouth.

Surgery Day- part two

We finally got moved up to a room around 2:45. Avery has been resting fairly well while we hold her. She was originally given fentanyl for her pain right after surgery, then was given IV Tylenol (which supposedly is better than regular Tylenol but I don't believe it) and the doctor ordered morphine but she hasn't had any doses of it yet. We are trying to stay on top of her pain but I think the nurses are going to wait until she gets fussy before giving her any more. It's been about 3.5 hours since she was given the Tylenol through her iV.   So far so good. The restraints do not stay on well at all and have already come off about 4 times. It should be a fun game trying to keep them on her. She hasn't complained or been upset about them yet but she is still pretty groggy and tired.

Tim and I are going to go home for a few hours and then come back later and spend the night here. Hopefully everything will go well tonight. Here are a few pictures from today. 

Ignore the dumb face I am making in this pic

Arm restraints. They even have a red headed girl on them.

Pulse ox, IV and allergy bracelet identifier. The only reason she is wearing the allergy bracelet is because I told them I didn't want her to have augmentin for antibiotics because that's when she had the horrible diarrhea and diaper rash. 

Rocking my girl to sleep

Tim holding Avery's hand

Avery's room for the night. Luckily there is a bed in there that Tim or I can sleep in. There is also a recliner and rocking chair in the room.

Surgery Day :-(

I will give you an update of what i know so far.

Its now 1:00 and we have been here more than 6.5 hours. Well we got up around 5:10am and checked in at main campus around 6:30. Her surgery was scheduled for 8:30 but they didn't start until 10:04. The doctor just came out and said everything went well. They had a little trouble intubating her. Dr Doumit said her mouth was so small and he couldn't even put his finger in there to close up the stitches, that he had to use instruments to close them. She will be on a milk diet for 4-5 days and then she can have puréed baby food or soft food like mashed potatoes. For the first day or two we will use a dropper for the formula and after  that she can suck on a bottle. She will be in arm restraints for 2-3 weeks since she puts things in her mouth.

I couldn't believe all the love and support that we received from people regarding her surgery. It was overwhelming. Her teachers at daycare made her a card, my friend Karen sent her a card and package and her cousin, Eddie, sent her a video message. Not to mention all the posts on Facebook. We love you guys and I will update more once we get to see her. 

Some random pics. Avery will not be commenting on them because she is not feeling up to it right now.

Care package from Karen. Cheer care bear and a Brave figurine because Avery is the "bravest" redhead that Karen knows. (Sooo cute, thanks Karen!)

Card from daycare 

Happy Birthday Tim!

Wednesday was my last Wednesday off with Avery. We decided to go shopping. We went to Southpark and Avery got her picture taken with Santa. I know it's a little early but she will soon have her arms in restraints for the next 3 weeks and will probably be an unhappy camper. Avery also had her pre-op appointment on Wednesday. Everything went fine. She is still a little peanut...only weighs 13lbs 15oz. She also received her flu shot and Synagis shot. She woke up crying at 12:45am. She was burning up. Her temp was 102.3. She never had a reaction to any of her vaccinations before. We gave her some tylenol, sat with her until she fell asleep and then checked on her an hour later to make sure her temp had gone down. It had so we went back to bed. Her temp was 99 in the morning. She did fine at daycare on Thursday but took a 3 hour nap when she was there.

One of Avery's Christmas gifts is going to be a 6 month subscription to Citrus Lane. It's kind of like a Bark Box for kids. It comes every month and is filled with products recommended by moms. When you sign up, you enter your baby's birthdate and they send age appropriate items. You can also select male, female or gender neutral gifts. We received our first one this past week and I couldn't wait until Christmas to open it. In it we received some reusable snack bags, a coupon for a free pouch of baby food, a cute spoon and fork, lip balm(sometimes they throw a special treat in for mom) and a really sweet toy boat that you can use in the bath tub. The boat is also a pitcher so you can use it to rinse shampoo out of your baby's hair. If you would like to sign up, please use the link below. You will get $10 off your order and I will get a $10 credit.
https://www.citruslane.com/invitedby/Susan.Svitak.2257762

Today is Tim's birthday! I ended up dressing some of the kids up in party hats to surprise him. It took a little bribing but it turned out cute.

Today was also my last day of working in Call Center Support Services at Cleveland Clinic. I had a great time working with all of them. They were there for me when trying to get pregnant, the days I would come in to work crying because Avery was having a bad day in the nicu, and also were there to celebrate the good times. I will miss them but know I will still be working with them on some upcoming projects. I am excited to start in my new position in the Telecom department with the Cleveland Clinic.

Avery has her surgery on Wednesday. When we went for the pre-op, Dr Love said she is so excited for us. I looked at her like she was crazy. I told her that she is not going to be the one that Avery is going to hate for the next three weeks when she is healing. She said it is going to be great. This surgery could solve all her issues. She won't be as congested all the time and she will finally be able to eat whatever she wants. Right now she is very interested in everything Tim and I eat but she has trouble eating it. We gave her mashed potatoes the other day and she choked on them because they got stuck in the hole in the roof of her mouth. I just had to look at it from a different point of view but Dr Love is right. This surgery is (eventually) going to be great for her. I will try to update everyone on Wednesday night about how her surgery went.

Not sure if you have seen this or not but it's about a family that had a baby born 15 weeks early. So many similarities to Avery. The husband made a video for his wife's birthday regarding the first year of their son's life. Watching the video brought back so many emotions that I experienced when Avery was in the NICU. Even though this video didn't have Avery in it, I feel like it tells her story. Click the link below to watch it.

http://vimeo.com/78393869

I love my fridge toy. 

Look, I have all these toys but I like playing with diapers instead!

 Read my shirt...it's so true!

Playing with Daddy

I wasn't very happy meeting Santa because the last time I met him I was in the NICU.

Kaitlin came over the other day to play with me.

Here is my first Citrus Lane box. Mommy is going to wrap it up and give it to me for Christmas. I think I am going to love getting these boxes every month.

I am Wall to Wall Plumbing's biggest fan!

Happy Birthday Daddy! We love you!

Fishies and Food

 I will be starting a new job soon and won't have Wednesdays off anymore. I will definitely miss hanging out with my girl. She is my shopping buddy. Since I only have a few free Wednesdays left, last week we decided to have a family day. We went to the Cleveland Aquarium and then went out to lunch. I thought the aquarium was so so. I probably won't go back for a few years.

Avery is starting to get another tooth. She is getting one of her front teeth. Avery's favorite thing to do this week is standing against a couch or her little music table and holding herself up. She has become very good at it.

Avery and I decided to go to the Fabulous Food Show this weekend at the IX Center. Her favorite part was the samples of ice cream (though from the picture below you would have thought her favorite was the program).

World Prematurity Day is coming up on November 17. It is a day to raise awareness about premature birth and how to prevent it. Every year, more than 15 million babies are born prematurely, which equals about 1 in 10 births.

Mommy, can we get one of these?

I liked the aquarium even though it doesn't seem like I did in this picture

Hi buddy

 I love riding Chewie! Daddy will have Chewie walk around the house and I ride on his back. Mommy said she will try to get better pictures of it. I normally have a huge smile on my face and I hold on tight to Chewie's fur.

I now sit up in my crib. Mommy and Daddy are scared (but excited) to one day come in my room and see me standing in my crib.

Mommy only got a small sample of ice cream to share between the two of us so I had to resort to eating the program.

Grandma S got me some new shoes! They are really cute but I am not a fan of shoes yet.

Mommy made a picture of me to post on Facebook for World Prematurity Day. It's hard to believe I was that little when I was two weeks old. Look at how small I was compared to Daddy's fingers.

And the embarrassing school pictures have started. Here is my first school picture from the infant class at daycare. I was NOT excited about having my picture taken.

Avery's 1st Halloween at Home

Avery is so good at taking her breathing treatments

Chewie knew that if he sat there long enough that he would get all of the milk that I spilled.

I was so excited to go to my friend, Luke's, birthday party

I'm doing my best Conan O'Brien impersonation...hmm maybe I should have went as him for Halloween instead of a ladybug

I look super cute in my vest!

Mommy was reading me a story

I received a Halloween card from Grandma and Grandpa

 Mommy and I after my bath

Eddie and Kaitlin came to visit my friend's house where we were passing out candy. Next year I will probably go trick or treating with them. It was too cold and rainy this year..plus I don't even know how to eat candy yet.

I got to dress up as a lady bug one more time. Look how excited I was.

Family photo

Ohh, you are supposed to eat the candy and not the bag? 

One of my new favorite shows is Bubble Guppies. This is Bubble Puppy from the show. Mommy bought him for me for my stocking stuffer. I will never remember that I saw this before Christmas.

Trying to talk to Daddy from across the room

This is how I say hi. Mommy and Daddy say it almost looks like a Hitler Salute and that they didn't teach me this. When I say hi to someone, I put my hand up and leave it there. I don't wave it around.

  Since I can somewhat crawl around now, I can steal the remote from Mommy and Daddy.