Some Major Milestones

It's been super busy the last few weeks. I've been spending 8-10 hours at the hospital everyday to work on feedings with Andrew. A lot of people ask if I get board spending so much time there...actually it goes by really fast for me. I pretty much do most everything for him, which I love. I could hold that little guy and look at him all day. I think I'm just making up for lost time since we had to wait 7 weeks to hold him in the first place. So Andrew is getting lots of mommy time and we both are loving every minute of it.

We've celebrated a lot of milestones this last week or so. Last Saturday, Andrew hit his 3 month birthday...really we've been doing the NICU thing for three months? Crazy? He now weighs 6lbs and 4 oz. and my little boy is getting so big!  My due date was last Monday. That was a hard milestone day for me....a lot of emotions. I just keep remembering the nurse say to me right after I delivered to expect these boys to be in the NICU at least until June 27th. This seemed so far away at the time.
Well, here we are.
Who knew we'd be where we are at...

We've also hit 100 days in the hospital. That blew me away when I heard them mention that in rounds with his team of doctors/nurses this morning. I had kind of lost track of the number of days.
100 days is a very long time.
I feel like my life has been put on hold for those 100 days and the numerous trips to the hospital each day just blend together. Since we spend so much time there, we've gotten to know quite a few nurses and doctors. They are amazing and we've grown to love a number of them. They truly have become  part of our family.

Stephen's started his job this week...another milestone we've been looking forward to since December and he is getting used to now going to work each day. He's just gotten into it all and the first few days have been lots of training and orientation. So nothing too hard yet. It's been a very long two weeks since he's been gone and I'm glad he's coming to visit for the 4th of July weekend. It will be so good to have him here even if it's just for a few days.

We've been able to talk to Stephen through the wonders of technology. Skype is seriously the best thing they ever invented. We take a computer to the hospital and chat every few days now that he has the internet set up at our new house and I even got a virtual tour of our place, since neither of us saw it before we signed the rental contract. It will be great! It's in a nice neighborhood and is just what we were looking for. I'm very excited.

Saying Hello to Daddy

Andrew continues to amaze us all. In fact we're working on coming home!  He passed his eye exam...which means his eyes are fully developed. Another huge milestone!!! This is the only thing we've been waiting for.  His eye doctor okay-ed him to come home on oxygen.  Wahoooo! So we'll have him on oxygen and he'll also have a feeding tube, for when he can't quite eat the entire feeding orally. They typically don't do this, but I'm at the point where I'll do pretty much anything and everything to get him home. We're very excited and surprised it's coming so soon we definitely didn't expect it quite yet. Andrew has had a few visitors who came to see him and hold him for the first time this week. We of course had to document the occasion. So here's a few pictures to enjoy!!!

I just can't get enough of those darling little hands

Grandpa Jerry was able to hold our sleepy boy!

Aunt Allison visited one afternoon and snuggled with our little guy!

Aunt Camille had a turn as well to visit little Andrew