Easton's Crib (literally!)

Last week I put the finishing touches on Easton's room!  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

 Most mommies fall in love with baby bedding from a store, purchase it, and put together a beautiful nursery to match.  Grandma B. will tell you that this is not the case with this mama!  I fell in love with the "groovy guitars" fabric by Michael Miller early after finding out that we were having a boy.  I researched where to purchase these fabrics in Kansas and went on a quest to do so, no dice!  So B did some searching and found everything we needed online.  One day I came home from work to find B and Aunt Kathy's sweat shop set up in my dining room!  Those ladies can sew!  They whipped together the curtains and bed skirt in one evening.

 Grandma B made the pillow that is on the chair where E and I cuddle up in the wee hours of the morning.

 Aunt Kathy made a beautiful quilt for Easton.  It is large enough to cover the both of us during the above mentioned cuddling!  The frog is on the back of the quilt.  It chokes me up everytime I read it.

 Kasey's bat that his dad gave him sits above Easton's closet.  It is a nice reminder of where his name came from.

 This is E's crib (which he still hasn't slept in!).  His name was actually up on the wall before he was born!  His middle name, Riggs, is after our wonderful fertility doctor.  It is an awesome name for an amazing kid and it also reminds us of the journey we went through to have him as part of our family.

 I love the paper lanterns hanging in E's room!  I almost broke my neck hanging them but they are so worth it!

The theme of the nursery is "Rock-a-bye Baby."  A friend of Kasey and made this cool artwork for Easton's room!  Thank you Jamie Pyle, it turned out better than I imagined!

Car Seat

The morning Easton had his car seat test Logan decided that he would try out his old seat too!  Here is Logan at...

 10 weeks,

 10 months,

 and, 3 years 9 months!

For all of you that have asked if Easton looks like his brother, here are some homecoming pictures to compare!  Logan (all bundled up!) is 38 weeks 3 days gestationally and Easton is 37 gestational weeks.

Happy Father's Day!

I feel especially blessed this Father's Day.  I was able to spend time with my dad and introduce him to his newest grandchild.

 I am married to an incredible man.  

 He has given me two tough little boys to love.  He has been my strength when I was tired.  I know that together we can make it through anything!

 Today he got to spend Father's Day with both of his boys!  This was the best gift he could have received!

 In addition, I sent him and Logan on a scavenger hunt around the house to search for his presents.  The last one was something I worked on in between E's feedings at the hospital.  I wrote the lyrics to Brad Paisley's "Anything Like Me."  I can only hope that our boys will grow up to be as wonderful as their daddy!  Happy Father's Day Kasey!  We love you!

Happy Homecoming Easton!

On Wednesday, June 13th, after 3 brady-free days we started gaining hope that Easton would really be coming home soon.  We would watch the monitors very closely to make sure he was behaving!  The doctors also saw that he was doing well and ordered his MRI and circumcision to be done on Thursday.  I was very concerned that a day that included two big procedures would send Mr. E. into another brady-crazy few days. 

When I arrived on Thursday they told me that his MRI was scheduled for 9:30.  I fed him, snuggled him, and gave him a pep talk about behaving himself!  

His nurse, Charlotte, swaddled him, strapped him in his compression suit, put on his earmuffs and hat, and away he went! 

When they returned, Charlotte told me that he had done well and slept through the entire thing!  As soon as we got back to his room Dr. Brunner was waiting to do his circumcision.  Eek!  Poor baby!  Dr. Brunner explained the procedure, I left, and within 10 minutes she came to get me.  She was very proud of her work!  

When Dr. Castro rounded that day she asked me what the plan was, to which I replied, "You tell me."  She looked at me and said, "Tomorrow."  I was beyond excited but kept my cool.  I understood that if Easton had a brady between that moment and discharge our dreams of homecoming would be shattered.

Kasey, Logan, and I rushed around buying last minute things that Easton would need if he really got to come home.  We finally set the pack and play up in our room, installed the car seat bases, and got other baby gear out of storage.  

The morning of the 15th, we went to the grocery store knowing that this chore would be a lot more difficult with two children!  Then we headed to the hospital.  Receptionists and nurses kept coming up to us saying, "Today is a big day!"  I was excited but still couldn't believe it until we were actually out the doors!  We did a lot of waiting but finally Dr. Castro came in to do Easton's discharge exam and fill out paperwork!  Easton was officially coming home!!

Charlotte took off all of his leads and his pulse/ox.  There was no chance that he would set off an alarm now!

 Daddy posed for a picture with the octopus!  He had been impressed by this room in the new wing of the NICU when he toured.  He was very proud when it became Easton's!

Mommy was pumped about holding her "cordless" baby!  

 See you later room 50!

 Easton did great in the car...

 I rode in the back seat with him but was much more calm than I was when we brought Logan home.

We were welcomed home by Gramma and Logan's artwork! 

Logan greeted us in the garage with a huge smile on his face!  He was so excited for Baby Easton to come home! 

 He wanted to show his baby brother Mater and McQueen.

 As you can see, Easton was very impressed!

 Then he wanted to hold him.

 Although Logan was not excited about it, we finally got a decent picture of the FOUR of us!

 Gramma Jan and Poppi were happy to hold the wee one without me reminding him about his chin dipping down or analyzing the monitors!  It was so nice that they got a day to snuggle with him before heading home.

 Can you tell Poppi is in love??

 Then the little man took a snooze in his big bed! 

Later that evening he took a nap on his daddy.

He did a great job welcoming us back into newborn parenting.  He screamed his head off from about 11pm-2am!  Kasey and I took turns trying to figure out how to calm him down.  We got a couple of hours of sleep.  When he woke up to eat at 6am he was crying so loud that he woke up his big brother.  Luckily we convinced him to go back to sleep for a couple of hours!  It was a rough first night but we wouldn't trade it!  It is great having our whole family in our home!

Spell Watch 2012

I bet you have just been wondering what the Weishaars have been up to for the last week! Well, let me tell you, it has been another week of ups and downs in the NICU... Last week Thursday I was told that Easton would have an MRI on Monday, we would room in on Saturday, and head home on Monday. That very night he had a brady spell that restarted the 5-7 day spell watch and shattered all hopes of our Monday homecoming. On Saturday morning Kasey and I headed to the hospital early so I could nurse him. It went terribly. He bradyed. Twice and both times required stimulation to bring his heart rate back up. We also learner that his hematocrit level had droppednfrom 27 to 23 in two weeks. The low end of a normal level is 30. That helped explain why he was having more frequent and more severe bradycardias. His nurse said that she would talk to the doctor about a possible transfusion. Although we didn't want him to have to go through a transfusion, we knew that it would help give him the needed energy to keep taking all feeds by mouth, grow, maintain body temperature, as well as keep his heart rate up. We decided to let him rest for the remainder of the day without visitors. I went home and slept in hopes of warding off all of the disappointed mommy tears that were building behind my eyes. We got a call later that day informing us that Easton would not be transfused because his retic (makes new red blood cells) was high and we needed to give his body the opportunity to fix itself. We understood the doctor's decision but were worried about how hard our buddy's body would have to work over the next several days. For three days Easton continued having multiple spells a day and mommy was a wreck. Sunday things started looking brighter. We had a nurse that thought we needed to do much more breast feeding and take him from his every four hour feedings back to every three hours. She thought that maybe he was over wafting and having bradys because of reflux issues. I spent most of the day at the hospital nursing him he had a great day without any spells. On Monday I came in to find him sitting in his car seat! He had passed his car seat test for up to 90 minutes! That night I stayed at the hospital to breast feed. He had another great day. Tuesday the doctors started talking about scheduling his MRI and circumcision for later this week. These are the last items to cross off of our going home check list. Easton is having another good day today and I am hoping that our Brady days are behind us. Fingers crossed for a couple more spell-free days! (Update from this evening: circ and MRI will be done tomorrow! Hopefully these procedures don't stress the little dude out too badly.)

Happy 1 Month Baby E!

It is so hard to believe that it has already been 1 month since Easton joined our family!  He is doing pretty well and enjoying the extra snuggles he is getting since being sprung from "the box!"

This week Gramma Jan and Papi got to meet Big E.  Of course they were instantly in love!  They have been taking over Logan and laundry duties while Grandma B takes a much needed break!  We are so lucky to have such great parents that take care of us even though we are in our 30s!

 Today Easton is one-month-old!  My friend Paula outfitted him with these nifty month stickers!  As you can tell he was not too excited about our photo shoot.  Hopefully next month's picture will be in the laundry basket for the popular "basket series" (see Logan's to the right)!

 Look at how big Mr. E has gotten!  A whoppin' 5 lbs. 10.4 oz!  We are working on him taking all feeds by mouth.  So far today he only had to be NGed (fed through his tube) 1 1/2 times!  My goal is to have the tube out by the weekend, hopefully that is his plan as well!  He has been doing much better at keeping his heart rate up!  We actually went 3 days without a spell and then he choked after one of his feeds and dropped his heart rate.  Ugh.  He has to be Brady-free for 5-7 days before they will think about sending him home.

 We talked to Dr. Simpson today about the results from his head ultrasound.  It turns out that on his right ventricle he has a Grade 1 IVH (brain bleed) and on the left side he has a Grade 1/2.  Of course we were not thrilled to hear that our child has some bleeding in his brain but we were reassured that it would probably not cause any long term damage.  You can read more about IVH here.

 Our wonderful nurse, Megan, sat and talked with us for a while about IVHs.  She made us feel much better as she went over the information and told us about former preemies she knew that had no lasting issues because of their brain bleeds.  She also joked that he may have a slight eye twitch on Wednesdays because of it or he might use it as an excuse to forget curfew when he is a teenager (love that girl!).  She also told us that she is optimistic that Easton will be coming home soon.  We have crossed off many items on the going home check list.  Hopefully soon they will be telling us to bring in his car seat and schedule our rooming in!