Cortney's Crew

On Saturday Aric graduated! I'm so proud of him!! As Dean said he is now the most educated person in the family. Aric is such an example of how you can do anything if you try really hard and put your mind to it. He has ADHD and is dyslexic. He had a horrible time in school which led to him dropping out of high school. He did study and get his GED, that was part of his deal with Mom about dropping out. And then 18 months ago decided he needed to go back to school and get some education. He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a grade point average of 3.87!! He now has an associates degree in Diesel Mechanics (that's not the official title, but I can't remember what it was). He went to school 5 days a week for 5 hours a day on top of working a full time job. I'm so proud of his determination and his hard work!!! He is truly an example to me and many others!

A few spare moments = uploading some pictures. These are a few from the girls last visit before she got to go home. These were taken on Monday. And these were taken on Wednesday when she got to go home!!!! This was Grandpa's first time to see her. He looked so uncomfortable holding her! It has been 5 years since there has been a baby for him to hold. And these were just cute pictures taken the other day. Look at how chunky she is starting too look, especially her cheeks!!!

I feel like a crazy lady, but a good crazy lady! We got to bring Scarlett home on Wednesday last week! And it has been quite the adjustment. Somehow we all forget what the sleeplessness does to us. (Otherwise we'd all only have one child...) The first couple of days were our learning/remembering how to do this days. Scarlett slept so good at the NICU, and at home there are no monitors or other crying babies, so she wasn't sleeping so great. Also she is a noisy sleeper (well noisy as in makes a lot of noise, she is not loud at all). We have her in our room in a playpen w/ bassinet, which is what we did with Alexandra and it worked out great. But she's noisy enough that Dean (who sleeps through anything) can't sleep with her in there. Although even if we put her in her own room we'd have the monitor on and so it would still be the same noises, so it wouldn't really fix the problem for him. Before she was born I had not bought a monitor or had plans to buy...

So my emotions have definitely been getting the better part of me lately...or should I say hormones... I had a long talk with one of the NICU nurses a few days ago (after my other posts) and we talked about how hard it is for premies to breastfeed and they almost never go home nursing exclusively or even close. We talked about how stressful the 4 feedings were for me (and for her, she just wasn't strong enough to nurse that often) and also for Riley and Alexandra. So I cut down to 2 feedings a day. I'm out there for both of the 8:00 feedings. Which has left me time for doing something fun with the girls and still getting a good nap in as well (in between all the pumpings - which I can't wait till I don't have to do anymore). The girls are loving it, we've had library time, water balloon time, playground time and maybe today we'll go bowling - not sure though since Scarlett's schedule changed today, but more on that later! I've also felt a lot bette...

Apparently you only have to be pregnant, be preeclampsic, gain a lot of weight, have the baby and wait 10 days! I had to go to the doctors office yesterday to have my blood pressure checked yet again (which is how I know what my weight is, there is no way I'd have stepped on a scale of my own free will at this point in time). I'm down to only needing to lose 10 lbs to be back to prepregnancy weight, so that was a nice surprise! My blood pressure is still high, but starting to finally go down a little bit. I told the nurse that it will probably drop dramatically once Scarlett is home from the NICU and I'm able to really rest. So after my depressing end to my last post, I thought I'd make a list of "Blessings that I've gotten from having Scarlett early". I've been trying to think of them while I'm sitting in the NICU, and yes some of them will be sarcastic. 1. Even if she has to stay there until her due date (7-13), it will have given me the time t...

On Monday the girls came out to see Scarlett and wish her a happy one week birthday. They have both been getting over colds (Dean too) so they haven't gotten to see her very much. This was the first time that they got to hold her. Riley was still coughing every once in a while so we had her wear a mask just in case, plus Dean wasn't feeling 100% either, so hence his mask too. Scarlett is doing really good. She continues to progress, but every once in a while she regresses (which is supposedly normal for a 34 weeker). She's almost back to birth weight, but last night she lost 10 grams (not a lot, but enough of a regression that they are upping her to 24 calorie formula to add to the milk I'm pumping). Every one keeps telling me that she will all of the sudden be better and then 24 hours later she'll get to go home, and I keep getting my hopes up on the days that she is doing great only to have them get knocked down on the days she doesn't do as well. I've bee...

So today I had to go home. I was discharged on Thursday and used up my boarding days. But I'm feeling pretty good, other than the emotional mess that is now me. Last night I sat and cried because I didn't want Dean to go home without me, yet I didn't want to leave Scarlett either...and the day before I cried while watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I think I'm holding up pretty well considering all that is going on. Scarlett is still doing great. She has gotten better in some aspects, and regressed in others. They took her off the billirubin lights yesterday, and when they tested her this morning it had only gone up a little bit. Not enough for them to put her back on her lights, so now she's in her crib instead of the NICU baby warmer bed. And that's also because she's doing really good with maintaining her temperature. She has not been eating enough lately though. After I went home today I got a call from the doctor. They decided ...

Scarlett has arrived!!!!! She was born on Monday, June 1st at 5:06pm. Making her exactly 6 weeks early. She was 6lbs 6oz and 19 inches long. She is doing SOOOOO good!!! She continues to surprise everyone in the NICU. We're not sure how long she's going to be in there, but they are not ready to release me yet either so, we're both making the hospital our new home for a bit. Everyone seems really impressed with all that she's able to do. She is not on any machines and is doing great with her breathing and keeping her own temperature. She is VERY red though.....so living up to her name! Her red blood cell count was in the 60's when she was born, so we've been anticipating her needing to go under the billirubin lights, which they just started. Her number was still low (7.2), but we found out she is A+, and since I'm O+ there is an incompatibility, so they started her on the lights before she started to get worse. And now for the story.... Wednesday my bleeding s...