Happy Halloween!

We weren't able to make too big of a deal out of Halloween this year but Jack did get to dress up and go to a couple of houses once we got home today.  Here's our cute little skeleton!

Jack is learning how to walk with his new push toys he got for his birthday but he also like riding them too!  This is his new toy we call "Scoot" and Jack riding him around the house!

We are working on getting rid of another cold here at our house and hopefully Jack will be back to eating his normal amounts of food soon but he's still taking his bottles and we are trying some foods but he just isn't eating much at all.  Hopefully he'll be at a decent weight when we go see Dr. Escobar on Friday. 

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY JACK!!!

We made it through our first year!!  Happy Birthday Jack!!  We are so proud to be your parents!  You are an amazing little boy!  Love you! 

Looking back over the past year...

Last year, I ended up in the hospital with very high blood pressure just past the mid-point in my pregnancy.  I started my hospital stay on October 18, 2009 - we were told due to the nature of my condition at that time, the only way to cure the high blood pressure was deliver but if I was willing and they could stabilize it, we would stay in the hospital, on bed rest, until they needed to deliver.  I was in it for the long haul - or so I thought.  We made it until Friday, October 23, 2009 - that morning the doctors said things were looking better, I was feeling better, so we had a goal of getting through the weekend.  I finally got to eat some food and we were hoping to get a little further along.  My body and little Jack had other ideas, that afternoon, in an emergent situation where they lost him on the monitor for a moment, we were rushed to the OR and he was delivered at 1:15pm a tiny 1lb 10oz and 12.5 in long.  I was unable to see him, Dustin was able to go back into a room and briefly see him before he was taken up to the NICU.  My first glimpses of him were through pictures Dustin took when he went up to the NICU - we didn't even name him until the next day.  The first few months of his life were a roller coaster of ups and downs - ventilator, CPAP, oxygen, feeding tubes, surgeries. 

Those things all happened while Jack was in the NICU - once he came home, he was on oxygen but taking his bottles until late March when they found a laryngeal cleft (rare birth defect) and he had to go on a feeding tube to avoid aspirating his food which allowed him to come off oxygen more quickly (yay!), he had surgery to repair his cleft in May, so as of June, he was off oxygen but still on his feeding tube, he had passed his swallow study so we knew he was safe to eat but he didn't want to.  So we continued to work on the feeding thing and we finally got a breakthrough in August when another doctor allowed us to completely take out the feeding tube and do a 'wean' - it worked!!  We have been tube free for 2 months now and he is still eating well.  This Saturday is Jack's 1st birthday, we are so thankful as to how well he is doing and look forward to the next years of fun!!

Here is just a brief look at Jack's progress over the past year in pictures!

The big 1 year old!!

hmmm....just a quick post

I was just sitting here and realized that this time last year I was laying in a hospital bed listening to one of the Neonatologists talk about what to expect when having a premature baby...it was the first day in a VERY long week!  More to come about that week soon!

It's been awhile!

Whew - I haven't posted anything in awhile!  We have been pretty busy lately and I just wanted to provide a quick update on what is going on...

Jack's still eating great!  He enjoys his pancakes for breakfast and we are working on giving him 3 meals a day and still going for the bottles also.  Our next goal is to go from bottles to sippy cups (hopefully by 18 months) and he is also drinking sips of water out of a big boy cup too!  Jack is still gaining weight and doing well with that - hopefully he'll have another growth spurt!

Jack's still practicing with the cruising - he is doing better each day.  He is also trying to crawl still - definitely has the army crawling down and is trying to get those knees up under him and continues moving forward!

We all went to Uncle Jared and Aunt Amanda's wedding last weekend - it was a fun time!  Jack was of course his cute, sweet self!  We can't wait to see all the pictures!

Overall things are going pretty well around here, Jack's 1st birthday is next weekend and we are looking forward to having a celebration of how special he is and how far he has come in the past year!!

Fun Photo shoot with Brooke!

Last Friday afternoon we had Jack's 1 year photo shoot with Brooke!  It was such a beautiful day outside and Jack was his charming self!  He enjoyed being at the park - the kid loves to be outside!  He was very smiley and happy all afternoon.  I know Brooke was excited to see him and got to feed him a bottle!  I think the last time she did that was when he was in the NICU and about 10lbs smaller than what he is now!  Here's Brooke's preview of Jack's pictures on her blog.