Sofia had herself an exciting last 24 hours to say the least. We arrived at the hospital this morning just in time to attend Doctor Snyder’s rounds and received some great info. Sofie has gained 50 grams (now 1lb7oz) and I think it has something to do with the “chocolate satisfaction” ice cream that mama ate the other night 😉 She has had several bradys and de-sats but normal, all things considered. She also is running her second day of the antibiotics which may be discontinued later today barring her 48 hr culture results. The initial 24 hr results just came back negative for any growth or infection, so we are celebrating that along with the two blowout diapers today! Clearly, she is tolerating her feedings quite well at 2mil and will be raised to 4mil today!! We’re expecting some more continued weight improvement this week from our little chunkster.
Mommy will begin kangaroo’in just after pumping this afternoon and Daddy will begin Sofie’s Mozart music therapy, suggested by my mother, Dawn Farsaci. She has been an instrumental leader and advocate for the Mozart effect for over 40 years and has led the choral program at Teague Middle School for almost 15 years. Daddy may also sneak in a little Sunday afternoon football with his little NYG cheerleader 🙂

Sofia had herself an exciting last 24 hours to say the least. We arrived at the hospital this morning just in time to attend Doctor Snyder’s rounds and received some great info. Sofie has gained 50 grams (now 1lb7oz) and I think it has something to do with the “chocolate satisfaction” ice cream that mama ate the other night 😉 She has had several bradys and de-sats but normal, all things considered. She also is running her second day of the antibiotics which may be discontinued later today barring her 48 hr culture results. The initial 24 hr results just came back negative for any growth or infection, so we are celebrating that along with the two blowout diapers today! Clearly, she is tolerating her feedings quite well at 2mil and will be raised to 4mil today!! We’re expecting some more continued weight improvement this week from our little chunkster.
Mommy will begin kangaroo’in just after pumping this afternoon and Daddy will begin Sofie’s Mozart music therapy, suggested by my mother, Dawn Farsaci. She has been an instrumental leader and advocate for the Mozart effect for over 40 years and has led the choral program at Teague Middle School for almost 15 years. Daddy may also sneak in a little Sunday afternoon football with his little NYG cheerleader 🙂

Hello my beautiful angel. I just wanted to tell you how proud Mommy and I are of you during your first week with us. You have shown courage, strength and resolve that is second to none. The nurses and doctors are all so amazed by how well you are doing, but we didn’t expect anything less from our little “sweet pea”. I am in awe every time I look at your sweet face baby girl and I love you with all my heart.
I knew from the first moment I saw you that my life would never be the same and I now know that nothing prepares you to see your child for the first time. I will never forget that moment because I am forever changed. I promise to love and protect you until my last breath and be there for you, always. Talk to u soon my little froggy legs.

Love, Daddy

Hello my beautiful angel. I just wanted to tell you how proud Mommy and I are of you during your first week with us. You have shown courage, strength and resolve that is second to none. The nurses and doctors are all so amazed by how well you are doing, but we didn’t expect anything less from our little “sweet pea”. I am in awe every time I look at your sweet face baby girl and I love you with all my heart.
I knew from the first moment I saw you that my life would never be the same and I now know that nothing prepares you to see your child for the first time. I will never forget that moment because I am forever changed. I promise to love and protect you until my last breath and be there for you, always. Talk to u soon my little froggy legs.

Love, Daddy

Hello my beautiful angel. I just wanted to tell you how proud Mommy and I are of you during your first week with us. You have shown courage, strength and resolve that is second to none. The nurses and doctors are all so amazed by how well you are doing, but we didn’t expect anything less from our little “sweet pea”. I am in awe every time I look at your sweet face baby girl and I love you with all my heart.
I knew from the first moment I saw you that my life would never be the same and I now know that nothing prepares you to see your child for the first time. I will never forget that moment because I am forever changed. I promise to love and protect you until my last breath and be there for you, always. Talk to u soon my little froggy legs.

Love, Daddy

Today is one whole week since my little sweetheart made her debut. All in all things have gone very well. Tessa and I spent the day with her and she decided that it was her birthday and she’s Brady if she wanted to! So she gave Tessa a good scare with a few back to back heart rate drops. We had a lot more A’s & B’s than we would like to see and they have been increasing the last few daysHer PICC line went in last night and although the procedure went well she seemed a little stressed today. After running her labs it came back that her white blood cell counts are elevated. They did a work up for cultures to see if there is an infection and if so, did it originate from her PICC line or her old line her belly button or just a general infection. Results will be back within 24-48 hours. In the meantime she was placed on antibiotic to avoid allowing the infection to continue. We got another great, messy, diaper today which is exciting because it means we are one step closer to her digesting milk and getting off the IV.

I came back from the NICU late this afternoon with every intention of heading back after the 6:30-8pm shift change. I laid down for a nap and didn’t wake up for a few hours and feeling a little like I have a sore throat. Getting sick right now would be devastating so, I’m hoping it’s just allergies rearing their ugly head. Seems like the week finally caught up with me. Being a NICU Mommy, I am subsequently an exclusive pumping Mama too. This means pump every 2 hours during the day and 3 at night trying to up my production.

For anyone who may have thought that having a baby in the NICU means you have less responsibility than a Mommy who has baby at home…this is SO not the case. I change diapers, take temps, pump, drive back and forth, watch her monitor for a heart rate drop so I can rub her back to snap her out of it and worry every minute that I’m away from her. I’m so glad we have one week under our belts because I know that we are one week closer to having her with me for naps, getting to kiss her little cheeks which I haven’t had the opportunity to do with all the CPAP equipment on her. I can’t wait to hear her cry next to me. We warned today that most babies that have a great first week have a difficult second week because of set backs. It makes me feel like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop but I’m trying to stay positive, live only in the moment we have right now and leave the worrying for when there is a reason.

Love,
Mommy

Today is one whole week since my little sweetheart made her debut. All in all things have gone very well. Tessa and I spent the day with her and she decided that it was her birthday and she’s Brady if she wanted to! So she gave Tessa a good scare with a few back to back heart rate drops. We had a lot more A’s & B’s than we would like to see and they have been increasing the last few daysHer PICC line went in last night and although the procedure went well she seemed a little stressed today. After running her labs it came back that her white blood cell counts are elevated. They did a work up for cultures to see if there is an infection and if so, did it originate from her PICC line or her old line her belly button or just a general infection. Results will be back within 24-48 hours. In the meantime she was placed on antibiotic to avoid allowing the infection to continue. We got another great, messy, diaper today which is exciting because it means we are one step closer to her digesting milk and getting off the IV.

I came back from the NICU late this afternoon with every intention of heading back after the 6:30-8pm shift change. I laid down for a nap and didn’t wake up for a few hours and feeling a little like I have a sore throat. Getting sick right now would be devastating so, I’m hoping it’s just allergies rearing their ugly head. Seems like the week finally caught up with me. Being a NICU Mommy, I am subsequently an exclusive pumping Mama too. This means pump every 2 hours during the day and 3 at night trying to up my production.

For anyone who may have thought that having a baby in the NICU means you have less responsibility than a Mommy who has baby at home…this is SO not the case. I change diapers, take temps, pump, drive back and forth, watch her monitor for a heart rate drop so I can rub her back to snap her out of it and worry every minute that I’m away from her. I’m so glad we have one week under our belts because I know that we are one week closer to having her with me for naps, getting to kiss her little cheeks which I haven’t had the opportunity to do with all the CPAP equipment on her. I can’t wait to hear her cry next to me. We warned today that most babies that have a great first week have a difficult second week because of set backs. It makes me feel like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop but I’m trying to stay positive, live only in the moment we have right now and leave the worrying for when there is a reason.

Love,
Mommy

Today is one whole week since my little sweetheart made her debut. All in all things have gone very well. Tessa and I spent the day with her and she decided that it was her birthday and she’s Brady if she wanted to! So she gave Tessa a good scare with a few back to back heart rate drops. We had a lot more A’s & B’s than we would like to see and they have been increasing the last few daysHer PICC line went in last night and although the procedure went well she seemed a little stressed today. After running her labs it came back that her white blood cell counts are elevated. They did a work up for cultures to see if there is an infection and if so, did it originate from her PICC line or her old line her belly button or just a general infection. Results will be back within 24-48 hours. In the meantime she was placed on antibiotic to avoid allowing the infection to continue. We got another great, messy, diaper today which is exciting because it means we are one step closer to her digesting milk and getting off the IV.

I came back from the NICU late this afternoon with every intention of heading back after the 6:30-8pm shift change. I laid down for a nap and didn’t wake up for a few hours and feeling a little like I have a sore throat. Getting sick right now would be devastating so, I’m hoping it’s just allergies rearing their ugly head. Seems like the week finally caught up with me. Being a NICU Mommy, I am subsequently an exclusive pumping Mama too. This means pump every 2 hours during the day and 3 at night trying to up my production.

For anyone who may have thought that having a baby in the NICU means you have less responsibility than a Mommy who has baby at home…this is SO not the case. I change diapers, take temps, pump, drive back and forth, watch her monitor for a heart rate drop so I can rub her back to snap her out of it and worry every minute that I’m away from her. I’m so glad we have one week under our belts because I know that we are one week closer to having her with me for naps, getting to kiss her little cheeks which I haven’t had the opportunity to do with all the CPAP equipment on her. I can’t wait to hear her cry next to me. We warned today that most babies that have a great first week have a difficult second week because of set backs. It makes me feel like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop but I’m trying to stay positive, live only in the moment we have right now and leave the worrying for when there is a reason.

Love,
Mommy

We have had the most amazing outpouring of support from friends, family and complete strangers. It’s during tough times in your life that I think you step back and realize what life is really about and who in your life is truly there to support you through the tough times. This has been our wake-up call. What has really taken our breath away are the people that we barely know who have reached out with kind words, cards and even gifts for Baby Sofia. Our situation as far as being in the NICU and all the crazy things that come with that has been compounded by the fact that we were placed in the hospital 2 days before our move form NC to FL. Our belongings, my car and our puppy made the move…we didn’t!

Some great friends of ours have opened up their home to us and we have had offers from others as well if we needed it. We even have an offer from Ronald McDonald House of Durham as they were also notified of our situation. We would love to take RMH up on their offer but it’s about 40min away and being 15 minutes away has felt like an eternity. It’s difficult to not have any material possession we are used to, I literally have 3 t-shirts and a ton of PJ’s, can we say time for a mall visit?! But at the end of the day I would walk around in Pj’s and bed slippers if that’s what I needed to do because all the “stuff” just doesn’t seem that important right now.

Today Sofia is working on the letter P….ha ha ha ha haaaa! Sorry Sesame Street joke, lame I know. We are so appreciate of all the prayers and thoughts that have been sent our way, each one means the world to us and I credit that for the strength all three of us have had during this time. We were still hoping for that poopy diaper and WE GOT IT!!!! We literally cheered for a dirty diaper and high fived after 5pm change. How many bets are on the table that a year from now we will NOT be high fiving a poopy diaper? We also had to sign a consent to have her belly button IV lead switched to a PICC line. They so this sterile procedure while we aren’t there and it breaks my heart that she may be in pain and be alone during after. We asked the nurse to call us after so we knew everything went well. It did! It was in a good position according to the X-ray and they will do one 24 hours after to confirm it’s still where it should be. We also decorated her cubicle area for Halloween! Our friend Tessa (who we are staying with) came with me to help me pick out the decorations. It’s still Sofia’s first Halloween so we wanted her to be able to be “excited” about her firsts.

We have had the most amazing outpouring of support from friends, family and complete strangers. It’s during tough times in your life that I think you step back and realize what life is really about and who in your life is truly there to support you through the tough times. This has been our wake-up call. What has really taken our breath away are the people that we barely know who have reached out with kind words, cards and even gifts for Baby Sofia. Our situation as far as being in the NICU and all the crazy things that come with that has been compounded by the fact that we were placed in the hospital 2 days before our move form NC to FL. Our belongings, my car and our puppy made the move…we didn’t!

Some great friends of ours have opened up their home to us and we have had offers from others as well if we needed it. We even have an offer from Ronald McDonald House of Durham as they were also notified of our situation. We would love to take RMH up on their offer but it’s about 40min away and being 15 minutes away has felt like an eternity. It’s difficult to not have any material possession we are used to, I literally have 3 t-shirts and a ton of PJ’s, can we say time for a mall visit?! But at the end of the day I would walk around in Pj’s and bed slippers if that’s what I needed to do because all the “stuff” just doesn’t seem that important right now.

Today Sofia is working on the letter P….ha ha ha ha haaaa! Sorry Sesame Street joke, lame I know. We are so appreciate of all the prayers and thoughts that have been sent our way, each one means the world to us and I credit that for the strength all three of us have had during this time. We were still hoping for that poopy diaper and WE GOT IT!!!! We literally cheered for a dirty diaper and high fived after 5pm change. How many bets are on the table that a year from now we will NOT be high fiving a poopy diaper? We also had to sign a consent to have her belly button IV lead switched to a PICC line. They so this sterile procedure while we aren’t there and it breaks my heart that she may be in pain and be alone during after. We asked the nurse to call us after so we knew everything went well. It did! It was in a good position according to the X-ray and they will do one 24 hours after to confirm it’s still where it should be. We also decorated her cubicle area for Halloween! Our friend Tessa (who we are staying with) came with me to help me pick out the decorations. It’s still Sofia’s first Halloween so we wanted her to be able to be “excited” about her firsts.