Day 34

Nate is 1 lb 10.7 oz today! Check out those little cheeks!!!

Nate had a much better day today! He has struggled this week and it has been sad to watch him have bad days. The doctors have been pushing him hard to gain weight and he finally reached his breaking point. His milk feeds have been increased everyday over the past week and a half. They have been paying special attention to his poo to make sure he is absorbing the milk and not just "dumping" it. It is common for babies with only half a small intestine for milk to come straight through without any absorption. Once that starts to happen it is hard to get it back to normal. The past day or two he has started to have very watery poo that looks more like milk than poo so his feeds have been cut back to 7 ml every 3 hours instead of the 11 ml that he was supposed to increase to today. It's a step back but better safe than sorry!

Nate also gets some nutrition through his IV since he isn't at full milk feeds yet. The doctors had been increasing his fluid each day as well to try to finally get this kid to gain some significant weight. He decided he didn't like that either this week. His lungs have started to collect fluid which has made it hard for the poor guy to breath and keep his oxygen levels up. So the doctor cut that back as well today. Hopefully he will continue to gain weight with all of these calorie cuts. 

So I guess that doesn't really sound like he's had a good day but he really has been better! This week Nate has been having a lot more "spells" than he usually has. When he spells either his oxygen levels go down very low, his heart rate goes very low, or he has a combination of both. Until this week, he has had some mild spells where his oxygen goes low and he pulls himself back up with a little extra oxygen. He has now started to include dropping his heart rate as well which scares us every time. He's also needing more help recovering from these new scarier spells. The changes that were made today are to try and reduce these spells. So far they are working! He also got another blood transfusion yesterday which always perks him up a bit. He only had a few scary spells today which makes us feel so much better. 

The best part of the day...I got to snuggle with my boy today! We get to hold Nate once per day as long as he is having a good day. Yesterday I wasn't able to get a turn because he was getting blood transfusions throughout the afternoon and evening and they needed to keep a close eye on him. I got to hold him for 2 hours today though and it was wonderful! He was such a good boy the whole time and only dropped his oxygen levels slightly once or twice and recovered all on his own. We both took a much needed nap and woke up feeling a lot better. 

Nate the Great

10 things that are great about Nate

1. He has tons of white blonde hair (just like his daddy did when he was little)

2. He loves to suck on everything - his thumb, his binki, the end of his IV...EVERYTHING

3. He loves to hold on to his left ear and is very sad when it's covered up and he can't find it :(

4. He HATES getting his nose sucked out by the respiratory therapist and tries to push their hands away.

5. He has a very good grumpy face that he pulls every time his nurse wakes him up.

6. He was born on April fools day

7. He loves to be held by mom and dad

8. He is very strong and surprises everyone with the strength in his skinny little legs.

9. He loves the little swabs dipped in water or milk that he gets to wet his mouth.

10. He's very sneaky and somehow always seems to get his hand in his poo.

Holding his ear and sucking his thumb

Updates

     I want to start this post by thanking EVERYONE for all of their thoughts and prayers for us and our little babies. We appreciate it more than anything else! I have been feeling guilty about not being very good about updating everyone on a regular basis. I have been overwhelmed trying to call everyone back and give daily updates so I've decided that in order to be able to spend more time with Nate, I'll take some time each day to update the blog for people who are wondering about our little man's progress. I've started a post about the events leading up to now but it will take me quite a while to finish that long story.
     Now that Todd has gone back to work, Nate and I have found ourselves a pretty good daily schedule. I get up with Todd at 6 to pump and get ready. The doctors are usually in Nate's room going over the daily plan around 9 so I try really hard to get over to the hospital as close to 9 as possible. After the doctors come through it's time for Nate's morning cares. They do cares on Nate every 3 hours and I love to be there to help. They change his diaper, clean up his poop, take his temperature, and do some other measurements. They also start his feedings a those times. At his 9:30 and 3:30 cares the respiratory therapist also takes off his breathing mask (CPAP) and gives his poor little nose and head a break. I especially like to be there for those cares because it's the only time I get to see his cute little face without anything covering it up. After 9:30 cares Nate gets to take a much needed nap (his cares totally exhaust him).  During the next couple of hours I pump again and stare at my handsome little guy until he's had enough of me then wait until it's time for his next cares at 12:30. It's the same schedule throughout the day until Todd gets off work. We spend some time with him in the evening and come back for dinner around 7. It seems like 10 hours spent at the hospital each day would be boring but it actually goes by very quickly and I hate it each night when we have to leave.

2 Year Anniversary Trip

Ok so I know that our anniversary was like 3 months ago but everyone should know by now how I blog...a couple times a year MAX :)

When Todd and I got married we decided to take turns each year planning the anniversary weekend. This year was my turn. We spent a fun-filled weekend in Salt Lake visiting the zoo, eating at Cheesecake Factory, seeing the movie 17 Miracles (amazing!!!), swimming at our awesome hotel, and going for a hike. We finished up the weekend at my friend's 30th birthday party.

At the zoo

This little baby elephant was my favorite part of the day. It was so hot so they set up this little pool for him to cool off in. He was trying so hard to get in it but apparently their back legs don't bend well so he could only get his front legs in. He finally just gave up and dunked his head in the water. It was so cute!

The next couple pictures are from our hike. I had looked online for some good hiking trails near Salt Lake that would be shorter since we were in a hurry to get back for Mishelle's birthday party. I found one to a waterfall that was supposed to be an intermediate hike that would take 3 hours round trip. Our first mistake was believing the website, our second was starting this hike at noon on the hottest day of the year, and our third was only taking 1 water bottle to share. So 2 hours into the hike the water was gone and we still had another hour to even get to the waterfall. We were sad that we didn't get to see the waterfall because we heard from everyone coming down that it was amazing.

We made it back to Pocatello in time to change and head out to Mishelle's 30th birthday bash. She decided to have a murder mystery party. It took some convincing to get Todd on board but we ended up having a great time! The story was set in the 20s so he had to dress the part...

Tax season

We are almost finished with our first tax season! I has been a crazy few months and I'll be glad when it is over and I can see my husband again. Todd started getting pretty busy at work in mid January and has gotten busier and busier. He is now pretty consistently working about 65-70 hours per week. A typical week he will go in at 6:30 or so in the morning and come home around 8 at night. He does this Monday through Friday and then works a half day on Saturdays too. Pair that with church meetings and my job and we pretty much see each other while we brush our teeth at night and on Sundays. 3 weeks to go...

So during tax season Cooper Norman has little competitions and games to keep them from going too crazy. This year they have given all of the accountants pedometers to track how much exercise they are getting. They were split into teams and the team with the most steps at the end of tax season wins $50 each. It sounds like a great idea but when you work 14 hours a day there isn't much time for exercise. Sadly, Todd has been averaging about 1-2 thousand steps per day which is pretty pathetic compared to the people that are in the lead. It has been entertaining though to see him go outside to jump rope for 10 minutes before he goes to bed just get a few more steps in. :) A few weeks ago I thought it would be interesting to wear it to my work for a day just to compare. I knew I walked a ton but I had no idea it was this much!

That's right, it says 22,222. Todd has been begging me to wear his pedometer for him for a couple of days to help him catch up :)

Tax season hasn't been all bad though. Having Todd gone all of the time has given me some good opportunities to visit family and friends that I haven't seen in a while. One weekend I was able to go to Logan for my cousin's sealing. They adopted a baby last August and were finally able to be sealed together last month. I had never been to a child sealing before. It was such a sweet experience. He was such a good little boy the whole day.

Another 6 months!

Is it completely pathetic that I only think that blog-worthy things happen to us like 3 times a year!?! I am always reading friends' blogs and thinking that their lives are far more interesting than ours and then I just never post anything. I'm going to get better though...it's going to be my New Year's Resolution.

A ton has been going on since the summer so I guess I'll start at the beginning...

The majority of this summer was spent studying. Todd and I both had exams that we had to take so there were many hours spent sitting in the library. We still made some time for fun though. We both had very laid back work schedules so we were able to do quite a few fun things. Todd's family went 3-wheeling a few times this summer and this is the 1 and only picture of just the girls in the family. We had some super fun times getting dirty, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, and spending time together.

In September we took another trip to Connecticut. Todd was pretty excited to be able to see New York in the summer and we spent an entire day walking around. We tried for a while to get this picture of us with the whole Statue of Liberty.

This one is on the ferry ride back to Manhattan. You can see downtown there in the background. I didn't get a single picture of the kids while I was there. I couldn't believe it! We had a great time though. Todd stayed for a week and then I stayed for a second week. The family got a new nanny while I was there so they asked me to be there to help train her. She has quite a task on her hands with those 4 crazy kids :)

Just after we got back from Connecticut we packed up and moved to Twin Falls. So far we love it! Todd started his new job in November and I think he's starting to feel comfortable there and enjoying it. It's been great! We love our apartment, we are making great friends, and things are settling in well.

Fast forward to Halloween - We went over to Burley to carve pumpkins with my cousin and her family. The girls lasted about 10 minutes and then we realized that all the adults had been carving for an hour and the kids were off playing other games. At least we had a fun time :)

We got a pretty unseasonable blizzard here just before Thanksgiving this year. It made traveling pretty miserable but we had fun building this snowman :) There are a couple little girls that live in the apartment below us and they had been dying to build a snowman so this was our best attempt. You can't really tell by the picture but it was as tall as me. He obviously wasn't very well-made though...he was gone by the end of the day.

I also finally got a job a couple of weeks ago! When we first moved here, I got a job at one of the hospitals working the night shift. It was terrible! It only took a few weeks before I was completely burned out and exhausted. I had no idea it would take me 2 months to be able to find a job with better hours but I finally did. I am working at the OBGYN clinic here. It's not as challenging as the hospital was but the hours are 8-5 Mon-Fri which made it totally worth it. So far I love it! This last picture is just before my work Christmas party. They decided to do an ugly sweater contest and this was the best the DI had to offer. We thought they were pretty ugly but realized we didn't have a chance when we saw some of the beauties other people found.

1 year

I can't believe it has already been a year since Todd and I got married. It has flown by SO fast! We were trying to decide what we wanted to do for our anniversaries. We aren't really big on gifts so we decided to take turns each year planning something fun. We chose Todd to go first this year since I spent last summer planning a wedding :) He did a great job and we had such a fun time. We started our weekend of fun on Friday. I got off work at 2 and we headed down to Salt Lake.

Our first stop was dinner at the Mayan. I had never been there before and Todd had been there only once when he was younger. It was great! The restaurant is 4 stories tall and on one end there is a huge waterfall with a pool at the bottom. Every half hour or so they would have divers that jumped off the rocks into the pool. It was amazing! (I tried to take pictures inside but it was too dark)

The next morning we hiked up Ensign Peak. It was a short hike up the hill but the view of the city was amazing! This is the bottom and you can see the top in the background.

This is us at the top

Saturday afternoon was spent at Seven Peaks in Provo. It is a popular Jensen family destination and I've heard all about how fun it is so I was very excited to go and see for myself. There were loads of water slides, a wave pool, a lazy river, and tons of other little pools. This picture is the scariest slide at the park. I like to call it the death slide. Todd convinced me to try it but I only did it once vowing never to put my life in danger again. It doesn't look nearly as intense in the picture as it felt looking down from the top.

Last but not least....IKEA! I have been dying to go to the SLC Ikea since it opened. While living in Connecticut, it was a frequently visited store but I haven't been since I moved back 4 years ago. It was still as great as I remember, though, and I'm pretty sure Todd enjoyed it as well.