Calgon... Take Me Away!

'Cause Mommy needs a break. And some uninterrupted sleep. Daddy needs some too. I'm not sure exactly what we're dealing with here, but since we came home Wednesday afternoon, Parker has not been sleeping well at all. He screams when he starts getting sleepy, and can keep it up for up to 30-45 minutes at a time before he will finally give it up and go to sleep... only to sleep for about 20 minutes, then wakes up screaming again. Perhaps the after-affects of anesthesia? At least at night he sleeps for two hour stretches before he starts screaming again. Ha. Right. Great.

Other than the fighting sleep thing, we are doing pretty well. The feeding is still really slow and sporadic, but beginning to improve. As far as his general demeanor, he is definitely back to his normal babbling, laughing, busy self. He's even managed two developmental milestones this week. He learned to clap and he's scooting everywhere. Fast. If we sing Pat-a-Cake to him, he will start to clap. Soooo cute!

Daddy and I are still trying to decide whether or not he will be able to go back to school tomorrow because the feeding is still not going as well as we would like, and we need to monitor his intake. They do great monitoring his intake at school, but we don't want to make his teachers nervous, and they have seven other little ones to look after as well. So, we may be home for the next couple of days, we'll just have to wait and see.

My Baby is Amazing!

Parker is a rock star! He has had a really good day today! He has still been a bit fussy, but I think it's more related to a gassy tummy and fighting sleep than being in pain. He is so afraid he is going to miss something and never wants to go to sleep - even on Tylenol with codeine! We weaned him off the morphine last night and onto the Tylenol with codeine. Good thing too, since the "mule" as I call him, (because he kicks so much and so hard) kicked out that hard-fought-for IV this morning. That meant he had to start drinking more by mouth and no more morphine, since it can only be given intravenously. I was determined there was no way they were going to stick him again after our experience last night, so he had no choice but to start drinking.

I was able to give him a good bath this morning and clean him up. He had a lot of dried blood in his nose that I was able to get cleaned out. We were able to put his own PJ's on him since we didn't have an IV anymore. You could tell it made him feel so much better, and he looked like my baby again.

He's still refusing his bottle and just does so-so with the syringe, so we've had to feed him with a straw. When we go out to eat we sometimes will dip a straw into water then dribble it into his mouth. Well, he loves that and now it's the only way we can get him to drink. It takes forever to feed him, but it's working, so we're keeping at it. He did eat a whole container of applesauce this afternoon for us, so that was encouraging!

Dr. Burstein came by to see us at lunch and said if Parker continued to drink well we could go home this evening if we want. We're going to see how the next couple of hour go, but we will probably wait until tomorrow morning to go.

We took Parker on a walk this afternoon to the lobby to get a change of scenery. There's a really cool donor recognition wall that has a background of a virtual aquarium. He loved looking at it as well as the Christmas decorations. Here's some photos from our outing. Will post more soon!

Surgery Day Update!

Parker is doing well tonight after his palate repair and ear tube surgeries this morning. Brian and I were amazed at how quickly Dr. Burstein and Dr. Yaunta completed his surgeries! Within 45 minutes he was totally done. Amazing! He's pretty groggy tonight, still trying to overcome the effects of the anesthesia and he's also being given morphine for pain. Hopefully we can wean him down to Tylenol 3 later this evening. The nurses say it's a bit more effective and lasts longer. Hopefully we can all get some sleep tonight! A friend I met on the Baby Center Message Board that had her daughter's palate repair here a month ago gave us the tip that they would bring a regular bed for Parker and I to sleep in if we asked. Thanks December! They're bringing our big bed now!

For those of you who know how nervous I have been, you'll be happy to know I held it together pretty well. A few tears when they came to take him back, then I did well. Waiting is so hard, but thankfully it took less time than we expected, so that definitely helped.

We are in room 101 at Scottish Rite. Once we got to the room they brought Parker to us. He's had quite a bit of bleeding from his mouth and nose, but it has gotten progressively lighter thoughtout the evening and has pretty much stopped now. He's shown some signs of his regular self - he's given Dad and I a few smiles tonight and is doing quite a bit of kicking, which is one of his favorite things to do!!!

The one bit of trauma this afternoon was a red, puffy IV site which caused the nurses to decide they had to pull it and call the IV team to re-start it. Well, it took three sticks and about 30 minutes before they could get it started. Dad and I both were about to become unglued, and Parker raised holy h-e-double hockey sticks. I don't blame him - those catheters HURT! I don't know if I could have endured three times myself, I still remember the IV stick being one of the most painful parts of my labor and delivery with him. Hopefully that will be the last bit of trauma while we are here. Now, we've just got to work on eating so we can get home.

I'll leave you all with some photos of the day, and will post more tomorrow after we (hopefully) get some sleep!

Thanks for all of the prayers, encouragement, calls and e-mails. We appreciate it more than you know!










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Again, I'm Just Really Bad At This.

But we have been soooo busy! We are at the beach for a long-awaited and well-earned vacation. We have spent the last three weeks moving from my house to Brian's condo. I do not suggest moving in June in Georgia (or at any time, really), but it had to be done since my house FINALLY sold. One down, one to go! We closed on my house Friday morning (YEA!) then headed south. We stopped in Albany for two days to stay with Grammy, then headed on down to the beach on Sunday morning.

The boys are doing great, Parker is eating well and starting to get chubby rolls on his arms and legs - so cute! I took him to the doctor's office last Monday to get him weighed when he was 12 weeks, and he weighed in at 11 lbs., 4 ozs. He gained exactly one pound in a month, which is really good. He's holding at the 19th percentile, so we're really happy about that. We saw Dr. Burstein (the plastic surgeon) a few weeks back, and he was happy with how he was doing, so they went ahead and scheduled his surgery for December 7th. I'm already dreading it, but will be happy to get it done and over with.

He's really starting to develop a personality, smiling and cooing at us. He's quite a talker and a charmer - no one can resist that gummy smile! We have also determined that he wants to be a big boy - one of his favorite things to do is to sit up and will try to sit up by himself and gets mad if you don't help him!

Peyton is going to Summer Camp at his daycare three days a week. They go on field trips at least 3-4 times per week. He's already done some really fun things this summer like attending a minor league baseball game (the Gwinnett Braves), a WNBA Game to see the Atlanta Dream, laser tag, trout fishing, soccer camp, and in a few weeks will be going to visit the Atlanta Falcons training camp for the day. Makes me want to go to camp!

We had the boys pictures taken 6 weeks ago - Parker was exactly 6 weeks old and Peyton is 6 years old. Enjoy, and hopefully we will be able to post some beach photos in the next couple of days.

Look Ma, No Tube!

I wanted to be sure it stuck, so sorry for the news delay, but we are officially tube-free! Last Sunday the 10th (Mother's Day), Parker pulled his NG tube out. Now, this in and of itself is not that unusual, he pulled it out quite often. The difference was that this time we didn't put a new one down right away because we needed a new one. Well, I think he figured out if he ate what he needed to from his bottle, he wouldn't have to have that horrible tube stuck back down his nose and throat, and he just took off with the eating! Not only was he finishing his mandatory 65 cc's, he started wanting more, first working up to 75 cc's every three hours, then 80 cc's. He has definitely moved to a three hour eating schedule, and when that three hour mark approaches, you had better be ready or you will feel. the. wrath. That boy gets angry if he has to wait for his food! He's doing fantastic and weighed in yesterday at 9 1/2 lbs. He is now in the 18th percentile for his weight when just a week ago he was in the 11th. We are very excited about his progress!

We have our first appointment with Dr. Burstein tomorrow. He is the plastic surgeon who will be doing Parker's surgery later this year. We are hoping after tomorrow we will know a bit more about what our course of treatment is from now until surgery, and what to expect when it is time for the actual cleft repair. Right now we don't know a whole lot outside of what we read on the internet. I will post what we find out so all of you will know after our appointment.

Little Mr. Clean

Here's Parker today after his bath, he loves the water! Today he weighed 8 lbs., so we actually got there sooner than I thought we would. We have a visit with Dr. Cooper (his pediatrician) tomorrow morning for a weight check and see if we need to increase his volume. Other than that, things are pretty quiet around here, which is how I like it!

There's No Place Like Home

We finally made it home! They released us from the hospital on Wednesday evening, and since then it has been a flurry of appointments, diaper changes and most of all, eating. Our entire day and night is consumed with feeding this baby. He has to take in at least 400 cc's (13 1/2 oz.) every 24 hours in order to gain weight. Our goal is an ounce of weight gain every day. This doesn't sound like very much, especially over a 24 hour period, but when you have feeding difficulties it seems like gallons. He's doing well with his bottles, but he did come home with a feeding tube, so whatever he doesn't finish by mouth we feed through his tube.

On Thursday we had our first appointments with the Cranio-Facial Center at Scottish Rite and with our pediatrician. We met with the nutritionist and the occupational therapist at Cranio-Facial, and both were very nice. We go back on May 20th to see the plastic surgeon and the therapist again. We will see our pediatrician again next Thursday for a weight check and to see if we need to increase his intake based on his weight.

Peyton had a tee-ball game on Saturday, so Parker got to enjoy some time outside. Peyton's team has had a rough start this season and hasn't won a game yet. They tied on Saturday 4-4. Yea! At least it wasn't another loss!

Before we left the hospital on Wednesday Parker got to meet his Grandpa Gardner! Brian's Dad came through town after a golf trip to Myrtle Beach, so he came by and spent a few hours at the hospital with us. It was great to see him. He lives in New Jersey so we don't get to see him very often. I was so glad he got to meet Parker while he was still so small.

I think that's it for now, time to go feed a baby again.