First Week At Home

We have survived the first week with Kaleb at home. How easy it is to forget to level of sleep exhaustion that occurs when a newborn is at home! Kaleb has been a very sleepy baby all week - partly due to his "early" status and partly due to the jaundice. As such, we've had to wake him up for nearly every feeding time (it sucks worse to be awoken every three hours by your cell phone alarm going off - doctor's orders - rather than waking up to a baby!). He is not nursing well, so the feedings are a long, drawn-out affair that involves nursing, and then weighing him to see how much he ate and then feeding him the rest from a bottle. While he eats the bottle, Amy has to pump in order to keep the milk supply up. So, the entire process takes approximately 1.5 hours and then it all starts over again in another 1.5 hours! We are praying that he starts to be a better nurser, and we're praying for the day that he sleeps through the night (we realize that we have WEEKS left, but it never hurts to start praying early!)

Amy's mom has been here this week, and it has been a godsend - especially in light of Zachary's "terrible 2" status and the feeding regime for Kaleb. Amy started off the week questioning how any parents handled two children (she has a new respect for anyone with more than 1 child!!), but it has slowly settled down into something that hopefully will be manageable! :) Zachary will be returning to the babysitter's next week - at least until Kaleb gets the eating situation conquered and the time it takes diminishes - Zachary has figured out that mom is "stuck" in the chair for an hour at a time - free reign on the house to get into all of the things that he knows he is not allowed to touch!

On the bright side, Zachary has been amazing with Kaleb. He is very interested in the "bebe" and has not shown any aggression at all. He has even given Kaleb a kiss! We were worried that he wouldn't take it kindly to no longer being the only baby in the household, but he has been awesome. We have to remember though that he still is a baby and needs his own special attention!

Zachary "helping" to vacuum!

Baby Kaleb sleeping out on the back deck to be exposed to the indirect sunlight (benefits for jaundice and for getting day/night orientation figured out!)

 Kaleb's first hair wash - notice that Zachary is "washing" his hair as well - his ended up being as wet as Kaleb's. Kaleb's hair actually looks a bit on the wavy/curly side and appears to be slightly blond so this will be interesting as we both have dark hair! Very tired Amy and Kaleb!
Karis took Zachary to a local park festival for "Earth Day" where he got a Home Depot apron - doesn't he look official! Zachary checking out baby Kaleb.
Snuggle Time with Daddy

Kaleb's Homecoming

On Friday, April 18th, Kaleb was discharged from the FH NICU and came home. We are so happy to have home out of the hospital - it was starting to feel like Hotel California - the place where you can never get out of! He is still very sleepy, and is just slightly over 6 lbs, so is still very small. Zachary is starting to take more notice of Kaleb - seeking him out to watch him sleep etc and to look at him. We'll hope that it is a smooth transition for both boys. We want to thank everyone for their prayers - they were greatly appreciated. Now we need prayers for the sleep exhaustion that is surely on its way! :)

Amy's work also threw her a baby shower yesterday, which was really fun to go and see everyone. Kaleb received many cute gifts - he won't be wearing many of Zachary's hand-me-downs! :)

Kaleb Update - April 16th

Today Kaleb's billirubin levels (jaundice) increased over the threshold of what is safe, so he was put under the lights. It is kind of frustrating, because Karis and I have been asking for several days why they didn't put him under the lights as a precaution as the levels were slightly elevated, just not over the threshold that was set as the "too high limit." We had a feeling that it would increase just in time to keep us in the NICU extra long, and sure enough, that is what has happened. The answer as to why they didn't put the lights on him earlier was that insurance won't pay for it - okay, so we're in healthcare (and Amy being Finance!) and yet that doesn't make any sense - the extra days that he'll have to stay in NICU have to be way more expensive than just paying for the silly lights in the first place and getting him out sooner. The nurse said that is the only reason at this point that he is there in the NICU, and even tried to convince the doctor to let us go home with at-home lights to treat him here, but the doctor felt that wasn't safe as his levels had increased over that threshold. So, now we wait for the billirubin to come down. He is very sleepy again today, presumably because of the jaundice, so he kept falling asleep while he was eating. Anyway, at least we know that it is just this one last hurdle to get over - that is encouraging! It is comforting to know that they are being careful with him, and that hopefully when we do bring him home, we won't need to worry about any health issues - there's a bright side to everything! :)

Update on Kaleb - April 15th (Tax Day!)

Kaleb is being taken off of his IV today, which is excellent news. At this point, they are letting him eat everything by mouth, so provided that he eats enough in the next day or so, we should be able to bring him home! Yippee! He is starting to wake up more and look around, which is fun to see him alert. His jaundice levels are holding steady, so we may luck out and not have to put him under the lights, which will also speed his trip home. It is strange to be at home without the baby, but it is also a little nerve-wracking to think about bringing him home - it has been comforting to know that he has be monitored every moment of the day. He didn't nurse as well today, so it will take patience over time I am sure (which I don't have a lot of, so pray for me!)

Update on Kaleb - April 14th

Kaleb has continued to improve and was moved from the Level 3 NICU down to the Level 2 NICU, which is apparently where he will be discharged from once he's able to come home. He increased his feedings today, so we're making progress. In addition, Amy was able to go into the hospital and nurse him - the first time since he was born. The lactation consultant indicated that he probably wouldn't latch on this first time, and wouldn't drink all that much. Much to both of our surprise, he latched on right away and drank quite a bit. They are watching him carefully for jaundice, so he may need to go under the lights tomorrow depending on his bloodwork. At this point, the feeding and his jaundice still remain our hurdles to bringing him home, but there seems to be more hope that perhaps by the end of this week we may be able to be discharged from Florida Hospital.

Update on Kaleb - Part I

Today we saw some major progress with Kaleb - he was able to have the nasal cannula removed, so now he is breathing entirely on his own. In addition, he was taken out of the isolette and put into an open-air crib. Lastly, he started to be able to bottle feed (and hopefully tomorrow try nursing). These are major events in a preemie's life apparently - little did we know these things prior to this week! Apparently the major milestones that he had to reach before leaving were:

1. Be off of any air support of any kind, breathing room air on his own. (DONE!)

2. Be more than 4 lbs (that was an easy one)

3. Be more than 34 weeks (again, an easy one).

4. Be able to maintain his own body temperature in an open-air crib (DONE!)

5. Be able to eat all of his food either through nursing or a bottle, with no support from an IV (this is the one that is currently in progress - hopefully he starts to "chow down" quickly!)

6. Be jaundice free - (currently we're evaluating this - he may have to be put under lights, but so far so good).

So, we are really only waiting for the food intake and to be sure that he doesn't have jaundice before we can take him home. We have no idea how quickly he'll ramp up his food intake, but we are now hoping and praying that we may be able to take him home sometime this week!

We had a great day with him - we were all able to hold him, which was really awesome.

I am including a picture of him now that he doesn't have all of the breathing apparatus on his face.

Ready or Not - Here He Came!

Short Version of Our Week's Tale:

Kaleb Evan Zbaraschuk Has Arrived!
Facts: Born April 10th at 2:49 PM, weighing 6 pounds 0 ozs and 19 inches long

Long Version of Our Week's Tale:

As many of you may know, Amy is a pre-planner through and through, down to even the details of when her babies are to be born. Case in point - Zachary was not to be born until after April 3rd because she had major work projects that had to be completed before she went on maternity leave.....and her water broke on April 3rd and Zachary arrived the next evening. With this pregnancy, she felt sure that "mind over matter" would work again and she determined that this baby would come on May 4th or May 5th. Sadly, this child is already showing us who is boss! :)

On Wednesday night (actually early Thursday morning), Amy awakened to the sickening feeling of her water breaking - at 36 weeks gestational age. Praying that she just peed her pants (strange prayer we realize!), she immediately went into denial thinking "my children can't be born within 1 week of each other - this baby is supposed to have a MAY birthday!!!!" After coming to grips with the fact that she in fact did not pee her pants, the next thought was "WE'RE NOT READY!" - we didn't have the crib made, we didn't have a bag packed, we didn't have the car seat installed....and she began running around the house in the middle of the night throwing laundry in the wash, cleaning the kitchen, packing a suitcase. After about an hour, she woke Karis up to say "We're going to have a baby!" and then we called our good friend Kelli to come over and watch Zachary while he slept.

The labor wasn't too bad in the beginning, and she got the epidural around 9:30AM. She was put on pitocin to get her contractions going when we first got there, so they continued to increase in strength and frequency. The baby's heart rate started to decelerate with each contraction and Amy began to worry (okay, she's a worrier at the best of times, but she also reviews all of the malpractice lawsuit checks at work that are over a certain dollar threshold, so she has read WAY too many bad baby cases to not know what can go wrong in labor....) - the doctor seemed to be calm about it saying that as long as the baby's heart rate came up after each contraction, we would be fine. About an hour after that, the room came alive with the doctor and nurses running into the room, and began flipping Amy from side to side trying to get the baby's heart rate up - apparently it had dropped and wasn't coming back. After a very frightening 5 minutes, the doctor indicated that if his heart rate didn't come up with their next "trick," we were going in for an emergency C-section in which Amy would be put completely to "sleep" in order to save time and get the baby out as fast as possible. Their last trick was to give her a shot that would stop all contractions immediately, and thank God, it worked.

With that behind us, we began to pray in earnest that the baby would be okay, and at about 2:30PM, we were told that she could begin pushing. After 13 minutes (much easier than Zachary's labor of 3 hours of pushing!), Kaleb was born and our next adventure began....

With Kaleb being only 36 weeks old, they told us that there was a chance that his lungs would not be developed, and that chance became reality. Within about 1-2 hours of being born, he was whisked away to the NICU unit where he underwent tests to see what was going on. It was determined that he has "Respiratory Distress Syndrome" and needed to have surfactant (okay, that was spelled wrong, but hey, I'm not medical) in his lungs. He was intubated and it was administered to him, after which he began to breathe easier. We are now on a journey with a "preemie" which is apparently a slow one - no-one has yet to give us a firm answer on when he'll be released from the NICU (Amy and Karis were able to come home today - sadly without our little one), but he has progressed nicely so we're hoping in the next week or so.

Below we've included pictures of the newest Baby Z, and thank each of you that were praying for us over the last two days. We welcome your continued prayers for Kaleb's complete development so that he can come home! :) We can't wait to bring him home so that he can meet his older brother Zachary, and so that we can hold him all of the time! (We haven't been able to hold him much in the NICU yet). We'll post more pictures as he progresses.

This was the before he was taken to the NICU for breathing problems
Day 1 in the NICU - he is attached to a CPAP machine which was giving him additional oxygen and positive air flow - along with an IV and all kinds of monitors.Day 2 - he has been removed from the CPAP and now has a nasal cannula (small tube that just gives him positive air flow to his lungs)
As this week's post was supposed to be about Zachary's Birthday Part II - here is a picture at least of Zachary at the hospital!

Two Years Old- Part One!

This has been a busy week, first with the arrival of Grandma Connie and Grandpa Dennis, and then culminating in the 2nd birthday of Zachary! We've had a wonderful visit with Grandma and Grandpa, and Zachary has been in his hey-day with all of the available hands to walk around with him, and to push him on the swing! Sadly they will return to Seattle on Monday, so we will be back to "regular" life.

We had a small family birthday party for Zachary on his birthday, Friday the 4th. After having such a big bash for his 1st birthday, and then subsequently realizing that we hadn't spent as much time with him as we'd like (rather than setting up decorations, getting food ready, and in general just running around keeping everything moving at the party), we decided that perhaps a small family celebration at least every other year might be just the ticket for some quality time with our child.

Zachary still doesn't quite get the whole opening presents thing - Amy ends up opening the presents for him, and then he'll think that the first present is so cool that he won't want to look at any others! We had that happen several times last night, but this morning he has discovered that his other new toys are quite fun. Zachary's first true "dive" into cake was also experienced last night as he didn't have much interest in his first birthday cake - so he was quite enthralled with it. Grandma Bobbi made a fabulous farm cake, complete with tractors, doggies and horsies. Zachary thought that the blowing out of the candles was quite fun - although when he "blows" - he blows upwards, so his bangs end up flying straight up in the air and the candle is in NO danger of being blown out. So, Daddy to the rescue with a coordinated blow timed with Zachary's to get the candle to blow out - then Zachary would laugh and chant "on, on, on!" so to indulge the child on his birthday the candle was relit and blown out several times.

We had a picnic out at the park today with friends to continue the celebration of Zachary, Luke, Kelli and Kent's April birthdays - but we'll post pictures of that next weekend as this post will be long enough as it is! :)