Long Overdue Update--Including More Pictures

I'm thrilled to report Cailin is doing great. She's up over 11 pounds now, is eating well, sleeping relatively well (naps are a bit of an issue), and overall thriving. We've put some new pictures on the right ide of the blog page, or you can see them here.

She's still on oxygen, and will be for a good while longer. She's gotten quite good at rubbing her cannula out of her nose--particularly in her sleep, which sufficiently lowers the oxygen in her blood for her monitor to alarm, and for Lauren to wake up and fix it (I wake up sometimes too, but Lauren is closer at hand for the fix!). This is a frequent event--sometimes 4 or 5 times in a night, sometimes what seems like 100, which obviously doesn't make for a sound night's sleep. But that's a small price to pay!

We've gotten brave and taken Cailin on a number of outings. She's been to the mall (on a not too crowded day), to the dog park (although she stayed in the car), and of course to a number of doctor's appointments. Weather permitting, Lauren, Cailin and Ellie (our golden) go on daily walks, the best recipe to get Cailin to actually take a nap. Lauren has also gone to a couple of infant classes, and has signed up to attend a weekly music class. Cailin's favorite part of the class is the other babies, so it's nice to get her out, and we are thrilled to be putting cold and flu season behind us! Perhaps the biggest news is a change in hair color. She seems to be following in her daddy's footsteps, and is shedding her red hair, and it appears to be growing back brown.

We apologize for not updating everyone sooner. As anyone that's gone through having a newborn in the house can no doubt understand, part of the issue has been time. But part of the reason for not posting--at least for me--has been the feeling that Cailin's home life just isn't quite as interesting to everyone as NICU life was--things are kind of, well, normal. And of course normal in this case is really, really good!

The blog was a tremendous relief for us when Caili was in the hospital; it allowed us to express emotions to all of you that we didn't share much outside of here. And it gave us the chance to try to give you all a sense of how trying it is to have a child in the NICU. But, thankfully, that's not us anymore, and somehow regular old baby updates don't feel important enough. Fortunately for us, we just don't have as much drama to report!

Anyway, one thing I do want to share with all of you is how incredibly blessed we feel. Lauren overcame incredible odds and risks to get to September 14th, and then Cailin took her Mother's gift and ran with it. Having her home still takes my breath away when I stop and reflect--particularly in light of the fact that some of our friends are still riding the NICU rollercoaster.

One family in particular has been in our thoughts often lately; their son was born 9 days after Cailin, and was due about 9 days after she was due as well--another 24 weeker. They were at a different hospital, but we had the great pleasure of meeting them when their son was transferred to Jefferson in December for eye surgery. He was transferred back to their home hospital after a few weeks, but we've stayed in touch with them. At the time we met, both babies were having their troubles, but he seemed to be doing pretty well. But over the past several months while Cailin got breaks, they got more setbacks, and their son is still in the hospital. While we haven't heard from his parents recently, not a day goes by that we don't think of their ongoing struggle and pray for them to be able to bring their little boy home soon, and of course in good health.

That brings me to our plans for this upcoming weekend; we're doing the March for Babies, which of course benefits the March of Dimes. I didn't know much about the March of Dimes before, but I've since learned that they are truly a wonderful organization, and all of us have much to thank them for. For example, they helped to fund Dr. Jonas Salk's research, which of course resulted in the polio vaccine. More relevant to Cailin, they also helped to fund research into a lung treatment called surfactant replacement therapy which became standard treatment for micro-preemies in 1989, something without which 24 weekers like Cailin would have virtually no chance of survival.

So, if you can, please join us on our walk this Sunday, April 24th. Call us for more information, or go here to learn more.


As always, thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.