SMILE!

Oh I forgot, Owen has started to smile!Looks like Dad in this pic!
He is a little hit or miss but smiling more each day. (not when he's passing gas either, guys, come on!)

Good days

Ok, so when I got back into blogging before O was born I was starting with our land photos, and the progress on the garden. And then he came! Here are some updated pics from this season.From left to right: corn, zucchinis, melons, basil, weeds!
Left to right: kale, cosmos, starting romas.
Soybeans
Corn with house in distant view.
These cosmos are now 7 feet tall!!

Chicken pictures to follow sometime soon!

Well I am a little behind in blogging, funny how we had extra time in the hospital and time has a complete new meaning. For the first few days home Chris and I agreed that we worked for an hour and then had a 2 hour break! (When O was sleeping). After getting in a groove and enjoying the every 3 hour schedule like clockwork, and not having any weight gain, we decided to let O decide when he was ready to chow (but not letting him exceed 4 hours). We started that 2 days ago and it has been going well. He did go one stretch of about 3.5 hours but has made up for it thru the day with a 2.5 hour one but really is just on his own schedule. It feels good to let him do that instead of waking him up.

We have been so fortunate for all of his care. Our cardiologist called us tuesday to check in after we saw him on friday, as well as the NP at UCSF has called us once and personally emailed me. It is so kind, I know how busy she is down there at UCSF, and she even reassured me after we kinda haggled her about discharging us. SUCH good follow up.
Here is O hanging with Great Aunt Lori.
O smiling while cuddling with Aunt Jac.
Ok, so this isn't our garden, but it is Aunt Tracy's garden in Cool. We went there at least once a week last summer and hadn't made it yet until the other day. Owen blended right in, a true future farmer (like he has a choice!)
Daddy O and relaxed O.
A beautiful sunny flower. Tracy gave me one that had fallen for seeds to roast and seeds to plant for next year!

Owen has been doing well. I think I already blogged it but we are adding more organic formula to my breastmilk to up the calories to make up for his increased nutrition needs. Hopefully that does the trick. I am eating butter and ice cream to fatten up my milk just kidding but maybe that part of the problem, no one knows exactly how much nutrition is in my milk itself. Hopefully this works, he has done well with it last night and today. Aunt Jac came to say bye before she leaves for Haiti on Saturday to go be a professional cuddler at an orphanage and also use her MA skills at a clinic. Aunt Court came by an was a professional cuddler with O today. We relaxed and Owen had some naked time out on the deck today under an umbrella. He loves being naked, and the fresh air also.

Chris was gone for most of the day doing errands and stopping by his work. We had a big THANK YOU to deliver to all of our extended Kaiser family. What a crazy blog, here there and everywhere. That's what you get for not blogging every day. Anyway, hope you are all doing well and wish me luck...Chris is going back to work next week! I will fend for myself- meds, diapers, and NG oh my!

Love, Chels

In need of adipose donations please

Hi all,

Poor O hasn't gained an ounce--literally...We are concentrating my breast milk more...He must have a fast metabolism paired with his work of breathing...We are bummed but what more can we do? We cry over every little spit or vomit up. We let him have some bottle and then hook him up to the pump. The whole process takes about an hour. We are trying our best. Hopefully this makes a difference. Continued prayers please, O needs some fat donations...if only it were that easy.

I have some new pics but for some reason they show up on desktop but not when I want to attach them to this post. We went on our first non MD outing last night to 49er farms where Trent and Tracy grow lots of yummy veggies. Owen loved it so much he pooped right in his overalls so we could change him. It was a really warm time of day and he needed to be stripped naked and he LOVED to sunbathe. Since it was the evening, and he was hanging out in the back of the prius (away from drafts) we let him sun it up. He was so peaceful and loved being nudie and outside!

Will post garden pics when computer allows. Love, Chels

Happy days are here!

Ok so took a day off of bloggin. Doing good, had some visitors, Jay yesterday and today Great Uncle and Aunt Lori and Brian. O took naps with all visitors. He is such a good gardener... 3 eggs today, 30+ tomatoes..wow! We are enjoying doing normal things like laundry, cuddling without a million wires, and hanging out with O. So far 2/3 times when I have gone out for a "break" (ie on a jog or to the garden for half an hour) O hasn't rested and just wanted to cuddle with dad. One of the times he balled as soon as I left the house. It's just a weird coincidence really, he is used to being around other people! Chris and I are diggin' the shifts. Chris and I enjoy doing the before bed and bath one, then Chris does the first shift so I get a few hours of sleep! Whooo! Then I enjoy doing the 2 morning ones (the ones where the sun is out is better). I have been trying to preserve some of our harvests for the times when O doesn't nap as often, I'm working, or for whatever reason we can't cook! I have made spaghetti sauce and zucchini soup so far. The deep freezer is about half full of breast milk, so gotta put stuff in there Chris and I can eat too!!

I plan on not blogging every day intentionally. It sounds weird but I have found that we have so many loyal readers that you all know everything when we hang out. I want to work on "normal" communication again...Although I know "normal" has a new meaning these days!

I want to extend our love and gratitude to all of our readers. It has given us so much strength to know that you care about us and follow our (Ok, Owen's) lives/life. Chris and I still have so many questions ourselves...When will be the next surgery? What will that process be like? When will Owen's body weight catch up so that his respiratory rate comes down and he can eat 100% by mouth? When am I going back to work? We don't know all the answers right now. But we are enjoying every minute- no matter what time of night or morning- with our little miracle babe.

Love Chels

7 weeks- Come what may

Howdy all

Quick posting. Cardiology appt went well. Different scale but no weight gain. All is stable from a cardiac standpoint, but this kid needs to gain! We have weight check ins once a week for the next 2 weeks.

O has had a harder day today. He was showing some signs of colic- fussy, crying, very unlike him at this point. He is sleeping now and we are contemplating deviating off of the strict every 3 hour schedule to led him lead some of the way. It is a hard decision because we want to give him enough nutrition. We offered him extra twice today and he took it when he was fussy. We'll see...It sure puts a different perspective on things professionally.

Quiet day at home, we had dinners delivered by some dear friends-yum! and Thank you Rudy's! We were gone but we enjoyed the note and food! Adam came by to meet little O, and we went to the garden to stock up his pantry.

Other than that we are doing ok, sometimes feel hungover with tiredness and othertimes normal but just a little fuzzy! Days are still running together and cant believe it is Sept! We are enjoying every minute at home. I took the bob stroller and Owen out this am. Let me say our road is not very conducive for a pleasant calm ride but O just slept on through and hopefully did not suffer any brain cells from the bumps. I worked up to a mini jog and it felt good. The push up the driveway was intense- if you haven't been to our house the grade is about 45 degrees! But I made it.

Can't believe I am a mom. Even after labor, even after all of the ups and downs and everything it is still sinking in. When we were going through all of the roller coaster and when O wasn't very stable I just kept thinking "This is not my life" Not that I didn't want it to be, it was just like I was watching it happen from above...that feeling lasted until after he was stable post-op. Now I am just running-no time to glance down from above:). A good friend once told me: "Come what may and love it". We are loving it!

Home days are the BEST

This was Owen's first harvest, we went down to the garden first thing the am after we got home. It was a little challenging to bend over to harvest things close to the ground but really no different than planting with a big belly!
I know, I know, WHITE is just silly. I knew that going into it. But honestly clothes are silly for babies anyway. But he has some damn cute outfits so I got him all guzzied up to meet Great Grandma Leins. Of course he had a back poop that creeped up just enough to get on his farming onesie. The socks are just too much but I couldn't resist. When Great Grammy got here he was in his birthday suit to show off his scar.
They came bearing food! Twice baked potatoes, ribs, brownies, salad, carrot cake, and rosemary bread! We enjoyed tea and laughed a lot. I missed seeing my grammy- it had been since before O was born! Thank you Bowens for watching Blue over the last few days.

Blue is a little curious of O but other than some smells no real relationship yet. I haven't taken pics of them yet.

Neighbor Ron and Debbie stopped by to meet O also. O and I were just hanging out on the deck and he entertained them very much. Chris was sleeping, as my nap shift was the hour earlier. (PS shifts rock to all you new parents out there).

O has had a great day again. He took down another full bottle and didn't need supplemental ng. He was also hungry after his last feed so I gave him a breastfeeding snack. It was such a wonderful day but I didn't get much sleep. After O's bath and dinner tonight I am going to sleep until the next feeding at 12. It is silly because he is sleeping so good at night and we are waking him up to feed him. But we are very committed to his weight gain and getting that ng out. We have stayed pretty religious to the every 3 hour feeds 6-9-12-3-6-9-12-3. It is a little against nature but that is what we were doing at the hospital. It feels good to go outside of that a little with the breastfeeding snacks:). I know, I am such a rebel! Hehe.

Tomorrow we venture to the cardiologist to check in. We will get another weight and I'm anticipating more gains!

Love to all and hope to keep this going as often as possible.

-Chels

big day

Hello there

We will have to revisit the aforementioned estimated blog posting time... O's feeding schedule falls with a feed at 9 so this time is a little hard. Also the length may shorten... this is a disclaimer blog! hehe

We had our first big outing today to the peds MD. Our MD was great and the NP from UCSF called him to give him a heads up about O. He made us laugh- did his physical inspection of O and then at the end said... "Well....he has a heart murmur..." It was funny in a morbid kinda way. We will go back in 2 weeks and check in on O's weight. I also had my 6 week OB appt and all is good there. Got the go ahead for exercise-in all my spare time! It was a big outing for us, we left at 1015, and didn't get home until 3. We prepared to give O his ng feed in the car between appointments and the kiddo took all 75ml from the bottle! Wahoo!!

When we got home I took a nap and Chris had O. O was awake for a lot of their visit. I slept like I had never slept before. Then it was my shift and Chris got a nap in. When Chris woke I was rearing to go on a walk or down to the garden. So I left and I harvested 8 eggs (6 in the am, and 2 in the pm!!), about 40 roma tomatoes, green beans, 10 almonds, and soy beans for dinner. YUM!

I got back and Chris was a little frustrated because as soon as I left O started crying and hadn't stopped. This was unlike him, as he has been very peaceful at our home thus far besides regular issues. We tried everything but finally he just needed to pass some good ole gas. He has been a little more full of that since he took another bottle 100% today by mouth! Big steps!!

Anyway before I make this blog all about gas, poo colors, etc (smiling), I hope you are all well. We are adjusting to this new life, and let me tell you we are so excited to be here. We get our doggie Blue back tomorrow! We haven't seen her in over a month and I guess she likes kittens! We will NOT be getting any of those any time soon.

We have attempted a house lock down of the Britton 3 but that soon will be lifted. Great grandma gets to meet Owen tomorrow, he can't wait.

Hope you are all well and best be getting to this tornado house I call it these days.

Loves and wet smooches from Owen

-Chels