She is my daughter after all!

Ever since Cameron was born everybody would talk about how much she looks like Josh. And she definitely does, I was just bummed because I couldn't see any of myself in her. So on Christmas my mom gave me some baby pictures because I didn't have any and wow! We do look a lot alike!!

Me at probably 3 months old (sorry about the flash in the photo, I had to take a picture of a picture)

Cameron at 3 months old (except she's more like a newborn but whatever)

It's Christmas Eve and Cameron...

will be out on Santa's sleigh tonight! Don't forget to look for her :)

Oh and I should add it's her 3 month birthday, my 2 pound preemie is getting so big!!

Home update

I haven't checked in in a while and Cameron has been home for a whole week! It's so crazy, this week has flown by. We are so busy but we are really loving it. It is still surreal to me that when I wake up she is right there next to me.

Overall our transition to home was very easy, Cameron has been doing so well. We still have a little bit of feeding issues, that's where her prematurity really shows. Preemies frequently have much more trouble eating than term babies. She is eating as much as she needs to be and is gaining weight appropriately it's just a little bit frustrating for Josh and I. But she will get it. We've been playing around with whether to breast feed or continue bottle feeding with the added formula for calories. It seems to me like the formula is upsetting her stomach making her not want to eat. When I breast feed or give her a bottle of only breast milk she seems to be much happier. As long as her weight gain doesn't slow down I am going to try to cut out the formula since it doesn't seem to be agreeing with her.

We had her first pediatrician appointment on Friday and a follow up eye appointment downtown at the Cleveland Clinic's main campus on Tuesday. The pediatrician appointment went perfectly. She was really happy with Cameron's weight gain and thought she just looked awesome for a 26 weeker (who still hasn't hit her due date). She had no health concerns about her whatsoever and she is now 5 pounds!! The eye doctor went pretty well too but not as well as I had hoped. The retina in her right eye is now fully developed and looks great. Her left eye is not quite there yet and has also developed stage 1 ROP (retinopathy of prematurity) since the last time he saw her. The eye doctor said this is nothing to be concerned about and wants to see her again in 2 weeks. He expects at that time for the ROP to have resolved and the eye to be fully developed. But until then he wants to monitor her closely to make sure it doesn't get worse.

Our neighbor came over the other day to do some photos of Cameron. I am so excited about how well they turned out so I thought I would share them!! She is becoming such a big girl :)

Finally!

After a long 82 days in the NICU, Cameron is finally home. It feels wonderful. We are loving every second of her being home. It feels very strange that we don't have to part with her tonight. I keep forgetting that she's home and then when she grunts or cries, for a second I'm like what's that noise?! And then I realize, oh yeah, there's a baby here!!

She is such a good baby and a really awesome sleeper (knock on wood). Sometimes we have to wake her up to eat, she'll sleep through the whole bottle but drinks it like a champ! She is quite the star feeder compared to how bad her start was.

Her alarm is a little annoying but I like the peace of mind. It is as loud as a fire alarm and every once in a while it will alarm saying her leads are loose. When that happens she's always wiggling out of the strap that holds the leads on but man is it loud, I guess it's good though because if there were a real alarm for a brady or an apnea we would definitely wake up. It's nice because we were able to keep it off most of the evening since we were holding her but just had to put it on for sleep time.

Penny is a little confused but taking it well. She can't quite understand why she is suddenly getting less attention. She's also very curious how this teeny tiny little person can make so much noise. She's been really good though, she doesn't have much interest in getting near Cameron. The closest she got was about a foot away and she was sniffing furiously but then backed off.

Overall our first night went great! I'm just so happy to have her home. She's keeping us busy but it's great!

Tomorrow

We are taking Cameron home. I have so much to do, I am going to be so busy today and tomorrow!!!! I'm freaking out a little bit! We are actually rooming in with her tonight at the hospital so I don't have much time left at all :) Just wanted to update you real quick! I will update again when she is home!!

She's coming home!!

Probably on Wednesday but possibly Thursday. I can not wait!!!!!!! Between this past Thursday and Friday she just had a moment where everything clicked. She quickly started taking all her feeds by bottle, went out into a regular crib Friday night, and had her feeding tube taken out Saturday. It was such an awesome weekend! She's still going great with her feeds so it looks like she'll be coming home this week.

They are sending her home on caffeine and a heart rate/breathing monitor. She has to wear it whenever she's not being held or watched (i.e. napping or nighttime). She will probably wear it for three months that way when she does come off the caffeine we can be sure she is not having bradys or apneas. I am completely fine with all of that because I will have true peace of mind. I won't be worrying that something is going on that we can't see.

I will update as I know more specifics. I am so happy this time has finally come!!!

Photo dump

I finally got pictures of Cameron bottle feeding and I got some in her Christmas hat. I realize the bottle is just about as big as her head but it doesn't get filled up anywhere near the top. Inside the bottle is my breast milk fortified with formula. Normal breast milk has 20 calories per ounce and hers is fortified with formula to 27 calories per ounce so that she gets all the nutrition her body needs.

No, we are not advertising for Tommee Tippee

She is SO exhausted!

Getting burped!

In her Christmas hat

Trying to put her fingers in her mouth 

Snuggling with daddy :)

37 weeks

That's Cameron's corrected gestational age, or how pregnant I would have been today. It's sad to me that she is not at all acting like a normal term baby. She still has apneas like crazy without the caffeine, she's still way smaller than a term baby, and she still can't bottle feed. If she had been born today she would not be having these issues.

The frustration of trying to get her to take bottles is almost overwhelming at this point. She just turns it on and off. Some days she does really well and some days she takes almost nothing from the bottle. Today has been an okay day but I'm not optimistic, I'm sure she will start doing worse again. I hate the fact that we would be home if she would just drink her bottles.

One good thing is they have successfully taken her off the lasix (or so it seems). Her weight gain has been really good since stopping her lasix (meaning it hasn't been too much). It doesn't look like she'll need to go back on but as we all know that could change at any moment.

I'll post some more pictures in a couple of days, I haven't done that in a while. Even with the little problems she is becoming such a big girl! She is almost 4 and a half pounds and getting close to growing out of her preemie diapers which is kind of exciting. 5 pounds here we come!!

Good news

After Cameron got put back on the caffeine I was kind of upset thinking they would never be able to get her off and it would be forever until I got to take her home. But I talked to her doctors yesterday and they told me that if she was ready to come home they would be fine with sending her home on the caffeine! So I guess it really wasn't a setback at all as far as how long it will take to get her home. They said if they had to they would also send her home on the lasix. I am really fine with taking her home on caffeine but I do hope that they can get her off the lasix first. For some reason I almost would feel more comfortable if she came home on caffeine. I don't think I would be so worried about apneas. Anyways, I am so happy about this. I'm amazed at how well the caffeine works, seeing her do so poorly off of it and then do a complete 180 when they put her back on was amazing. But then technically the only thing that leaves for Cameron to do is to take all her feeds by bottle! Once she does that consistently we will finally get to take her home. Much to my dismay I think that will still take some time. The doctors have always told me that this is usually the last thing the babies have to conquer. She's still doing okay on her feedings. She actually had a really good night and morning where she finished all her bottles so I'm hoping she continues to do better and better. Next week she'll be 37 weeks corrected which is finally full term so they want her to start acting like a normal baby! It's so weird, whenever I got upset about a setback they would always say, "remember she's still very young and she's not supposed to be born yet". So next week they really can't say that anymore. But I'm sure Cameron will not care about being 37 weeks corrected so we'll have to see what she decides!

In other news, March of Dimes posted their list of March for Babies events for next year. The date for Cleveland is Sunday April 29. It's a 4 mile walk that will start downtown. Josh and I are really excited about it and hope to march with Cameron as long as we get the okay from her doctor! We'll be putting together a team and we really hope that everyone in the area who is able to march will join our team and march with us! It is something that is really important to us as March of Dimes potentially may have saved Cameron's life with all the medical advancements they have made through their research. Anyways, it's still far away but we are getting excited!

Some more setbacks

Cameron must have gotten tired out and stopped drinking very well from the bottle so she definitely isn't getting her feeding tube out this week. She just needs more time to learn but it's frustrating because we're at the point where she could come home if she was doing everything right. She is meeting the weight requirement (which is 3 lb 15 oz, she is 4 lb 1.5 oz), she just needs to be feeding from the bottle 100% and get off her medications. With such a short list it sounds like it would be simple but it's not.

As far as her medications go, we took a step backwards. Over the past week she started having more and more apneas which are the cause of the oxygen desaturations. They had stopped her caffeine last Monday and everything kept getting worse so they had to put her back on it. Since they restarted the caffeine her apneas and desaturations have stopped and her breathing seems to be perfect but she has to figure out how how to keep breathing without it. I'm worried that since she is still having apnea episodes this close to the end that something is going to happen when we take her home. So now not only does she have to get rid of the lasix, but the caffeine too. I have a feeling these last weeks are going to go so slow.