Sunday April 8, 2012 - 6.5 Weeks Happy Easter!

Tatum's first Easter!! We had such a great day!! We spent last night at Charlie and Melissa's house for dinner. We had a good time visiting and we pulled out Melissa's heavy duty scale and weighed Tatum on it. We were so curious to see how much she has gained since her last appointment 2.5 weeks ago. She weighed 7 lbs 3 ozs! She's gained a little over a pound in that short time. She is doing excellent! I had so much fun putting together Tatum's first Easter basket! She was obviously not aware of what was going on but I wanted to give her a nice basket anyway and I think she will love looking back at the photo's oh herself with her basket. She is so tiny next to it!!

We took her to church this morning and unfortunately, she had a major blowout in the middle of it!! Oh my God, she was in her car seat asleep in her stroller and started fussing and I bent down to give her a paci and smelled it. Oh boy! I got her into the bathroom and it literally ran all the way through her car seat and it was everywhere!! What a major mess to clean up! She was happy as can be as soon as I got her out of that and cleaned up. I missed the entire service cleaning her up but it was just fine. I had Rich finish helping me at the end and we were on our way. We went to my Mom and Dad's house for dinner and Jim and Heidi were in town. It was great to see them. We had a fun Easter and Tatum pretty much slept through the whole thing…ha!!!

Friday April 6, 2012 - 6 Weeks Old

Today is Good Friday and we took Tatum to see the Easter Bunny at the mall. It was so cute! The bunny was a little creepy but it was so fun to take her. I've always wanted to do all these fun things with my child and now I get to! It's truly surreal. We have been just enjoying Tatum so much! She is so much fun! Roxy and Gabby really love her too. Roxy is still a little scared of her and doesn't really know what to think but Gabby always follows me around when I'm holding her and licks her head. She also licks her ears but I don't allow her to lick Tatum's face. That's just gross and it freaks me out!

We bought an Ergo baby carrier and that has been a lot of fun. She is still really small and we should have the infant insert to put her in but we have been playing around with it just at the house. She is so tiny in it and it's hard to see her but sometimes when she's fussy and you need to get stuff done around the house, we just put her in the ergo and she is just as happy as can be. Here's some recent pictures of Tatum and all 3 of us today and recently.

Thursday March 29, 2012 - 5 Weeks Old - Tatum's Original Due Date!

I cannot believe it but today was my official due date for Tatum. The last 5 weeks have been the most amazing, fun, loving, beautiful and difficult of my entire life. Tatum has brought so much joy and happiness to Rich and I and I still can't believe we were blessed with her 5 weeks early. I have been depressed off and on during the last 5 weeks just because of normal baby blues but I was also incredibly sad that I was robbed of the part of my pregnancy. I wanted to have that last part to feel uncomfortable, to feel the rush of going into labor and having to get to the hospital quickly. I wanted to have the last part to feel pampered, get her room ready, wash all her clothes, do the final shopping for everything she needed and then just relax before she came. Instead I was thrown into an induction situation, my body wasn't ready for it so I had a c section and my baby spent her first 11 days of life in a hospital without her Mom and Dad tending to her every need. The nurses did that for her. I could only help take care of her when I would get there in the morning until I would go back to my room or go home. I missed out on that instant bonding with my baby girl and being able to breastfeed her from the beginning. Instead she was on a feeding tube and had to be on constant oxygen. It was very difficult to see my precious baby hooked up to all those monitors and not be able to do anything about it. I wanted to hold her whenever I wanted but I couldn't. There were only "special" times that we were allowed to do so. It was incredibly hard. You wait this entire pregnancy and all you want to do is hold your baby and you are not allowed to. It was such a hard, devastating time but we made it through. She was and is incredibly strong and was determined to get out of there. She called all the shots. She pulled her first cpap off, pulled her oxygen tubes out, and finally her feeding tubes. She did everything in her time, just as she came early in her time.

Even though I feel that those 5 weeks were stolen from me and although everything I mentioned was incredibly difficult for me, we were blessed to have this incredible baby 5 weeks early! We got this awesome gift early! Those extra 5 weeks of her life were given to us. It has been a truly amazing journey so far and so much has happened in the last 5 weeks. We love this baby more then we could ever have known. She has changed my life forever in so many fantastic ways. I hope I can be the best Mom to her that I can possibly be and give her the most beautiful, love filled, fantastic life that she can possibly have. I love her more then anything and I cannot wait to see what this beautiful, little girl has in store for us. She has taught me so much already in her short time here. She definitely has taught me that I need to go with the flow more and that life doesn't go according to the way you think it will. She has taught me to have patience and that I would do absolutely anything for her. She is my entire world and she has made me whole. I cannot imagine my life and this world without her in it now. I am the most blessed woman in the entire world that I was given the chance to Mother this beautiful, amazing baby girl and to have this much love in my life. How did I get so lucky???

The one really cool thing that happened was last night we had our first 4 hour stretch of sleep!! She has only been sleeping in 2-3 hour increments so to have 4 hours in a row was wonderful! We can't wait for even longer stretches! Go Tatum Go!!!!!

Thursday March 23, 2012 - 1 Month Old Today!

Yesterday started out like any other day. Everything was going just fine. I was out running errands with Tatum in tow and I stopped at a park by my friend's house so that I could feed her. She ate her whole bottle of food, I burped her, kept her upright for awhile to let her food settle and then when I went to put her back in the car, she projectile vomited her whole bottle of food on me. I thought it was strange but she didn't really seem to be bothered by it. Later in the day around 5:30, she projectile vomited her whole bottle of food again and her stomach was rally hard and distended. I decided to call the Pediatrician's office and the nurse told me to take her to Cardon Children's Hospital immediately. She said especially with her age and being a premature baby that it was crucial to get her checked out. We brought her down to the hospital and they thought she may have Pyloric Stenosis. It's a condition that is narrowing of the opening from the stomach into the small intestines. It doesn't allow food to flow through there properly so it backs right out; projectile vomiting. After ultrasounds, x-rays, and many exams, the Doctor's determined that it's not Pyloric Stenosis but think it's a bad case of Acid Reflux. Just to be safe, they wanted to keep her overnight for observation because of her prematurity and how young she is. They finally got her a bed and got her settled in around 3:00 in the morning. They wouldn't let her eat all night and just had her on IV fluid's and let me feed her some pedialyte and she seems to be doing a lot better today. They let us leave with her around 12:00 pm and just told us to re-check her with Dr. DaSilva in the next couple of days. I felt so bad for her but she seems to be just fine today. Her stomach apparently was full of air because of gas so I think we may need to look at some different formula for her. I am still feeding her my milk but I still supplement her with formula and that is what she had when she first vomited yesterday. Maybe I can finally get more milk in so I can stop supplementing with formula all together??!!! It is so frustrating. I am trying everything to get my milk supply up. I have tried Fenugreek supplements, Mother's milk tea, drinking more water, Gatorade, oatmeal, everything that is supposed to help. Nothing is making my supply increase. Supposedly the baby nursing is supposed to help but she still refuses to nurse. I try all the time and she just gets really frustrated, hits me and cries. It makes me so sad but I want to keep trying for her. I know it's the best thing for her but she makes it so difficult. Poor baby. She just had eating issues from the very beginning so I think we were doomed from the start. I will keep trying and see what the Doctor has to say about what we should do.

Today is Tatum's One Month Birthday!! Happy One Month baby! What a way to spend it. :( We are just so happy that she is okay and that it's nothing too serious. We are sick of hospitals!!!

In the morning before errands…my little cutie pie. She loves to raise her hands up. She's so little in her car seat. :)

At the park for Tatum's lunch…before vomit. :(

My poor, sweet, little baby girl. She had an IV started in the ER. This is us waiting during the many, many hours in the ER. Grrr!!!!

She's so little in the big hospital bed.

 Rich and I with Tatum the day she got to leave the hospital. It is Tatum's One Month Birthday!!