Holly's Homecoming

Our little girl is finally home! The hospital called Friday (the 18th) morning and told us we could come pick her up and bring her home. That was after everything that happened on Thursday though.
Thursday was the day we expected to bring her home. I woke up at about 5 feeling sick and vomiting ensued. The hospital called at 7:30 and told us to come and pick her up. We decided to wait a while to see if I started to feel better because we didn't want to bring her home to all my germs! I guess we waited too long because they called back a couple hours later and said they wanted to keep her an extra day, just to be sure.
We were pretty disappointed, but at the same time we saw the blessing of it. Since I was sick there was no way I would be able to take care of her! Also, in the evening around 8 o'clock, our power unexpected shut off.

As you can see, we were the only ones with trouble. The entire city (about 25,000) people were without power.I called up to the hospital to check on Holly and everything was fine. Thankfully they have a generator so it was business as usual for them.
Friday morning came and I was feeling A LOT better. We called the hospital to see if a decision had been made, but they said they hadn't seen the doctor yet and were waiting for his final approval. They called shortly after 9 to have us come and pick her up. We hurried as fast as we could so they couldn't change their minds. Here are the photos of Holly's last moments in the NICU.

So now our little Holly is home and we get to do all the feeding and changing, playing and loving our little girl!

Holly & Atley

We've been taking so many pictures of Holly and she's changed so much in the last week and a half, so we though we'd share the pictures with you all in a slideshow!

There are some pretty great videos we've taken of both our kids. Enjoy!

Above is Holly having a meal with the help of a gavage tube and Dad.

Her sneezes are so cute!

Atley is as cute as ever. We tried to teach him the sign for "please", but somehow it got mashed together with "more". He always does this new sign when he's ready for more at the dinner table.

Things are going well with Holly. She's not just over 4 pounds, but we still have no estimate of when she'll be coming home. We've been able to feed her, change her, and even help with her baths! Unfortunately, Atley and Holly still haven't met because of the hospital policy of not letting anyone under 18 in the hospital unless they're a patient. We show Atley pictures of Holly everyday to try and get him used to another person being around and Holly has a picture of Atley hanging on her bed.Hopefully we'll be able to bring her home soon and they'll become best friends!

Happy Birthday Holly!

For our Thanksgiving week, we're extra thankful to welcome our little Holly to our family. She was born November 24, 2009 at 1:05 pm. She weighed 3lbs and 10oz and was 18in long. After an ultrasound Monday afternoon, they determined that she needed to be born so they could assist her in gaining weight. So, monday night around 7, Ian and I headed up to the hospital leaving Atley with some good friends of ours. They induced labor and I had mild contractions all through the night making sleeping slightly difficult. At around 8 the next morning, the doctor came and broke my water. Because I was preterm, it took a little while for the contractions to become regular, but once they did, Holly came so quickly. We pushed for around 5 minutes. Then I finally got to meet my beautiful little girl.

She looked really great and they were very pleased with her cry, though she was tiny. We got to see her for about a minute before they whisked her away to the NICU. Ian went with her, but they sent him back pretty quick because they had some further procedures to do. The next time I saw her, this is how she looked.

We left the hospital the next night because I hadn't been able to see Atley because of the hospital restrictions. Our little Holly did really well the first day or so, coming off the oxygen and breathing on her own. She even opened her eyes for a quick photo shoot. The following pictures and videos are really a treasure.

Since we left the hospital, we've been able to go back and visit her twice a day. The nurses that are taking care of her and really great at explaining things and telling us how she's doing. And, as any NICU parent knows, the time our baby spends in the NICU will be full of ups and downs. Currently, she's back on the oxygen and has a tube in her lung because, as I understand it, it sprung a leak. They've discussed transferring her to the hospital in Idaho Falls, but as soon as the ambulance was on it's way to pick her up, she turned around and was maintaining her oxygen levels. The doctors say that she's quite feisty and definitely a fighter. We have no idea when she'll be able to come home. We're so thankful for everyone who has been praying for her and our family and ask you to continue. Though there seems to be no long term problems, we'd like to bring her home as soon as possible and we certainly need the faith and prayers of everyone.

Videos!

Atley has been doing some pretty funny things latley so decided to share! Firstly, he's found his dancing feet! Ian says we should put him in tap dancing or clogging because he believes he's a real prodigy. I just think he adorable and it's good exercise. He always puts on the moves no matter the music, but this music comes from a toy he received for his birthday. He absolutely loves it! Check it out!

The second video is Atley at the dinner table. He's becoming more picky with what he eats and some foods he used to love he now refuses. This video is a game he was playing at dinner. He decided that he no longer likes shepherd's pie, but he wanted to pretend like he did so he'd whine for some and when it got close to his mouth, he'd make the "yuck" face. It was weird, but also pretty cute. Enjoy!

Happy 1st Atley!

Just after Halloween last year came Atley. We remember that day well and so we celebrated! The day got off to a rough start though. Ian and I forgot to change our clocks, so we didn't realize we were running an hour ahead of schedule until we arrived at church for Ian's morning meetings. Almost nobody was there! We hurried home and since we had an extra hour, we let Atley open one of his presents.

He and Ian played with it until it was time to go to church while I laid in bed contemplating how mean daylight savings time is to small children and their Moms.
Church was rough because nap time was thrown off, but we survived.
When we got home we hopped on the video chat to talk with Grandma Almeda and so she could watch Atley open the presents she sent.

We also got to video chat with Grandma and Grandpa Baron and Grandma and Grandpa Sorensen. It took up a good portion of the day, but it was nice to have them be able to see Atley and sing to him even though they live far away.

Later in the evening some of our friends came over to share Atley's birthday cake with us.

We got a free birthday cake from Albertson's, and I made cupcakes too! Atley was the center of attention since we gave him his very own cupcake and let him go to town.

I'm not sure he realized that there was cake under the frosting. He eventually got there, but left about half the cupcake scattered on his plate.
On Monday Atley had his 12 month check-up, too! He now weighs 19lbs 7oz (7th percentile) and is 29.5 inches tall (41st percentile). As we looked back at pictures of the day his was born (6lbs 3 oz), it was hard to believe he was ever that small. He now has 8 teeth, he walks, and we're still working on the talking thing. I think he knows what he's saying, we just have to learn his language.
It's such a blessing to have Atley in our lives. He brings us a lot of joy and laughter. We're excited to see his reaction to the new baby and to call him "big brother." We hope you guys had a great Atley day too!