After 76 days in the NICU, our little Becca is finally home! Our rooming in experience went well and they released Becca yesterday afternoon to come home with us. The pictures show our hospital room, which was right next to the one I spent 11 days in before Becca came, and Abbie, Becca’s nurse for the day. One of the last things Becca did before leaving the hospital was to christen Abbie.

Becca loves her swing and is getting used to her new bed. It’s so wonderful to have her at home with us. We’re all adjusting to our new schedules. Becca requires 3 medications plus vitamins, and she eats every 3 hours. Becca has to wear a heart and breathing monitor 24/7, so she always has a cord with her. So far we’ve only had false alarms go off. We’re praying that she will do well and be taken off the monitor soon.

We’re praising God for bringing Becca home. He has answered so many prayers concerning her life. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for our little Becca.

It’s hard to believe that our Becca is now 70 days old – she’s made such progress since her birth on Thanksgiving Day. Becca’s current weight is 6lbs and 4.5 oz. She’s doing well with her bottle-feedings and and might be home within the next week. As of Wednesday, Becca became the oldest baby in the NICU and now holds the title “Princess of the NICU.” We’re looking forward to having Becca home this month. Thank you for all your prayers!

Becca now weighs 6lbs, has graduated from her plastic bin to a little crib, and is occasionally put in a swing by the night nurses.  We’re still waiting for Becca to get the hang of bottle feeding. The NICU staff has tried several methods (different bottle nipples) to help Becca have successful bottle-feeds. Currently they’re adding thickener to Becca’s milk in hopes that it will keep her from choking when she bottle feeds. The nurses keep telling us that one of these days everything is going to click for Becca and she’ll be home in a jiffy. Thanks for your continual prayers.

18 inches long and 5 lb. 9 oz.!

Many people assume that 5 lbs. is the magic number for leaving the NICU, but this is not the case. Technically, Becca only had to weigh 4lbs to come home. After she hit  the 4lbs mark, the only thing that keeps her in the NICU is her oxygen support and tube feedings. Becca came off her nasal canual on Friday and has been doing an excellent job breathing without any additional support since then. Currently, the only thing that is keeping her in the NICU is her feeding tube. In order to come home Becca must take all her feedings through the bottle. Though she had a great start, right now Becca isn’t doing too well with her bottle feedings and we’re expecting that she’ll being the NICU until sometime in February.

We continue to be pleased with Becca’s progress and good health and are thanking the Lord for working on her behalf. Thank you for your continual prayers.

This past weekend, Josh and I enjoyed our 2^nd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day getaway. We traveled to Dallas and stayed at the Magnolia Hotel. The Magnolia Hotel is the former Mobile building (i.e., Exxon Mobile), and it was built in 1910. At the time it was the tallest skyscraper in the city and was the first to have air conditioning. We stayed in a corner room on the 24^th floor – the “historic” floor – and enjoyed our view of the city. Once again, our vacation was sponsored by credit card points. (Rent and tuition really help the points add up during the year!)

At the Magnolia, we enjoyed soda during their “happy hour” and a milk, cookies, and coffee snack at the late evening cookie bar. For dinner, we walked to a little Italian restaurant. The hot breakfast in the morning was great.

Our little vacation was relaxing for us both, especially after the events of the past 10 weeks. Josh started back to school on Tuesday and has an exciting semester ahead of him. Our next big event will be Becca coming home!

A picture from today…notice anything missing?

This week I was surprised with a “shower in a box.” My sister-in-law, along with other friends and family members, organized a special shower for us all the way from SC. Josh informed me that he had a surprise for me this week. So after coming home from school and taking my nap, I was invited by my husband into our living room to see my “surprise.” I overwhelmed to see our living room full of gifts from friends and family. (See video below!)

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After eating our angel food cake with strawberries, Josh and I enjoyed opening our gifts. As of this evening, we’re only half way through opening everything. I’ll post more pictures once we finish opening all the gifts.

The shower means so much to me. With everything going on with the unexpected early arrival of Becca, I keep thinking how I’m missing out from all the “events” surrounding one’s last three months of pregnancy (some might say that’s nice — but I was looking forward to experiencing pregnancy all the way through). It means so much to me to actually open up presents, instead of buying everything with gift cards. I know it was a lot of extra work for Ashleigh to pack and ship all the gifts — and we appreciate all that went into planning and preparing our shower. Thank you to all who helped making our shower so special!

Today is Becca’s 6-week birthday! She started out this week (Sunday) by coming out of her incubator and is now wearing clothes and working on learning to take her feedings from a bottle. Once she learns to take all her feedings through a bottle, she will be released to come home! So far, Becca takes one bottle during the day-shift and one during the night-shift. The occupational therapist works with her bottle-feeding during the day, and Josh has been able to go in during this time and learn all that goes into bottle-feeding a preemie!

Becca’s current weight is 4 lbs. and 4 oz. We’re very pleased with her progress. Thank you for your continual prayers for our little girl!

Today is Becca’s 5-week birthday! She currently weighs 3 lbs 11 oz and is 15.5 inches long. We’re looking forward to when she weighs 4 lbs – that’s when bottle-feeding can begin and bottle-feeding is a big step toward coming home.

We’ve enjoyed being able to participate in caring for Becca more. This week we’ve been learning how to bathe her. Each nurse has her own technique, so we’re learning lots of ways to give preemies baths. Last night we did most of the bathing on our own (with supervision) – Josh washed her hair.

Today we took a spoon into the NICU to “retake” the picture my mom took on Nov. 27th. As you can see, Becca is making progress to someday being able to use a spoon on her own. It’s amazing to look back at pictures and see how much she’s grown since Thanksgiving.

We’re having a quiet New Year’s Eve – Josh is working on finishing up his dissertation proposal, and I’m trying to get some things in order before I start back teaching on Monday. I’m breaking my maternity leave in half, so when Becca comes home from the NICU I can go back on leave and be home during her first few weeks home. Thank you for your prayers for Becca. We are praising God for her good progress and health.

We had a delightful white Christmas. I haven’t had a white Christmas in several years and found it funny that we were in Texas, having a white Christmas. We started out our day by visiting Becca and singing Christmas carols to her. Becca is still in the isolation pod and will continue to be there until she comes home. We’re praising God that the MRSA is just colonized in her nose and that she is infection free.

Late morning and early afternoon, we enjoyed homemade cinnamon rolls and opening presents by the Christmas tree. We’ve been saving gifts sent to us or Becca to open on Christmas day. Our Christmas tree was lent to us by Aunt Rita (a lady in our church), many of our lights were given to us by David and Caroline, and most of the decorations were lent to us by Sandi (another lady in our church). It was so nice to have a Christmas tree in our little apartment.

In the afternoon, we went to see Becca and I was able to hold her. She was quite alert and seemed to enjoy being held, even though it was through a gown and gloves. We came home, read the Christmas story, had homemade bean dip with chips, and enjoyed watching Charlie Brown’s Christmas.

In the evening we had our Christmas dinner, which consisted of ham, fresh green beans, and baked potatoes. Josh made a delicious pumpkin pie for dessert. After dinner we made our evening visit to Becca and then enjoyed watching a movie. We both agree that we had a lovely Christmas. We enjoyed being able to spend the day together without the pressures of work or school. We enjoyed our visits with Becca and are praising God for our darling gift from Him.

Today is Becca’s 1-month birthday. Her weight, as of this morning, is 3 lbs and 4.9 ounces. It’s hard to believe she’s a month old already. We’re looking forward to when she can celebrate her month birthdays at home with us.

Today is Becca’s 4-week birthday – it’s hard to believe she’s a month old already. This is a picture of Becca with the bear Santa gave her for Christmas. The bear’s head is about as big as Becca’s. (To give you a perspective of how big the bear is, check out my hand in relation to the bear’s body.)

Today Becca weighs 3 lbs and 3.5 ounces. We can definitely tell a difference in her size – she’s starting to fill out and actually look like a little girl, instead of an old woman. The nurse last night gave Becca and her teddy bear matching hair bows.

We’re looking forward to celebrating Christmas tomorrow. It will be our first Christmas as parents and our first in our own home. We’re grateful to people from our church family who have lent us Christmas decorations (will post pictures later). I’m looking forward to spending the entire day relaxing with my husband (he’s not going to do any dissertation work tomorrow) and visiting our little girl.

Thanks for your continual prayers for Becca.

Sunday night, Becca had a special visit from Santa! Santa visited all the babies in the NICU and left them Christmas presents. The nurses took the above picture…looks like they dressed Becca up like a little elf.

I enjoyed holding Becca Sunday afternoon. Josh brought a mirror so I could watch her face, since kangaroo care doesn’t allow for much “face-time.” Becca settled right in to being held and did really well during her 30-minute holding time. Afterward, we changed her diaper and settled her in for another long winter’s nap.

Today Becca came off the SiPAP and is now back on the nasal cannula. The haze in her lungs is clearing up and the doctors are satisfied with her progress. Her current weight is 2 lbs and 15 ounces, and we’re excited about her reaching the 3 lb mark. Yesterday, the doctor changed Becca’s feeding process. She is now being fed 28 ml in 30 minutes, every three hours. This is to prepare her for bottle feeding.

Today is Becca’s 3-week birthday!! Anna stopped by to give Becca a birthday present – two cute outfits! This picture was taken by one of the night nurses the other night when she had Becca’s SiPAP off. They’ve decorated her bed for Christmas and put a red bow on her head. The haze in Becca’s lungs seem to be clearing up, but she will remain on the SiPAP until she can consistently stay at 30% or less oxygen saturation. (Currently she is around 37% oxygen and does not do well on her own when they removed the SiPAP.) Thank you for all your prayers for our little girl – we appreciate them.

This morning, when Josh called the NICU, he was given the doctor, instead of the nurse. The doctor said that today’s x-ray showed haze in both of Becca’s lungs, and that she was being put back on the SiPAP (see picture) until this problem clears up. About a week ago she had a foggy section in her left lung, and they started respiratory treatments, in the hopes that it would loosen the fluid. There have been no improvements, so she’s now back on the SiPAP and our holding of Becca has been discontinued until her lungs clear up. Becca also may have an infection. The nurse said that this is all part of the preemie roller coaster. Please pray that Becca’s lungs would clear up and that there would be no further complications with her respiratory system.

Last night we got to hold Becca for the first time. I was a bit nervous as we drove to the hospital. Susan, her nurse, bundled her up so we could look at her face for awhile before letting her snuggle on our chests. Susan was Becca’s the nurse on her first night in the NICU and it seemed appropriate that Susan would be there the first time we held Becca.

Becca seems much smaller when she’s out of the incubator – I was surprised how tiny she is. We were delighted to be able to hold our little girl and were pleased with how well she handled being held. We’re allowed to hold her once a day (being held causes her to burn more calories) — as long as she’s handling well.

Becca now weighs 2 lbs and 7 ounces. Today, her doctor increased her feeding to 11 ml per hour. Right now the goal is weight gain. Thank you for your prayers for our family!

Today is Becca’s 2-week birthday!! We’re thanking the Lord for her growth and development over the past two weeks. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for our Becca.

As of  last night, her weight is 2 lbs and 4 ounces, and we will now be able to hold her during the times she’s not being fed. So, we’re anxiously waiting for when we can make it during an “off” feeding time to hold our little girl!

The picture to the left is from the other night: one of the night nurses at the NICU took a picture of Becca at 3AM when she (Becca) was “clowning around.”

People often ask us if we spend a lot of time visiting Becca, and they’re usually surprised by our answer. We typically visit 3 times a day, but our visits usually last less than 30 minutes. Contrary to what most people expect, Becca isn’t ready for a lot of touching or talking. Developmentally, she’s supposed to still be in the womb, and too much touching or noise can agitate her. Josh and I usually touch her a little bit, talk to her, and sing to her when we visit. The NICU tries to make Becca’s environment as much like the womb as possible. She usually has a cover over her incubator to make it dark.

Only two people are allowed to visit Becca at a time (our NICU’s rule), and one of the two must always be a parent. We have to wash our hands for 3 minutes before entering the pod (Becca is on C-pod). Sometimes, if we arrive when she’s having a procedure done, they let us help. The other day the respiratory therapist let me help with her breathing treatments (similar to an inhaler for asthma patients).

Becca is doing well. Her weight as of tonight is 2 lbs and 3 ounces! She finished her antibiotic today and hopefully is clear of her respiratory infection. She continues to eat 10ml/hr and is receiving 1.5ml of sugar an hour because of her insulin levels.

This week the results came back from the analysis of her umbilical cord. She only had 2 blood vessels, instead of the normal 3 . . . and the cord was missing the Wharton’s jelly, which supplies cushioning for the blood vessels. We’ll never know what caused these abnormalities, but my doctor said that it’s unlikely that these things will occur in other pregnancies.

Josh is doing well. He has two major papers to finish this week before the semester ends. He’s been a wonderful husband and I have seen him demonstrate his love to his girls over and over again. We got our first official family picture last night (top of this post)!

During her stay, my mom has been a huge help to us! On Saturday she made 7 pans of lasagna for us to freeze, on Monday she made lemon garlic chicken for us to freeze, and today she’s helping de-clutter the closet, with the hope that we can keep the baby stuff in the closet and live in our apartment until Josh finishes his degree.